Brown urges Iraq hostage takers to release Britons

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday urged those holding three British hostages in Iraq to release them immediately and said London and Baghdad were trying to bring their ordeal to an end as soon as possible.

Brown was speaking after his government confirmed the deaths of two men who were among five Britons seized in 2007 by an armed militant group from inside a finance ministry building in a raid in the Iraqi capital.

“There can be no justification whatever for hostage taking and I call on those people who are holding the British and Iraqi hostages to return them as soon as possible -- indeed immediately,” Brown said.

Brown, who Saturday said he was “saddened and dismayed” by the deaths, told reporters he had spoken to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki late Sunday about the remaining hostages.

“I emphasized our determination to do everything that we can to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” Brown told reporters. “The British government will work with the Iraqi authorities to do everything we can until their ordeal is over.”

The decision by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair to send some 45,000 soldiers to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple former President Saddam Hussein was deeply divisive at home, prompting millions of protesters to take to the streets in repeated anti-war demonstrations.

Brown, who took over from Blair in June 2007, announced last week that a inquiry will now be held into Britain's role in the Iraq war. Only about 500 British troops remain in the country and Brown was keen to defend his government's handling of the hostage taking.

Peter Moore, a computer instructor, was kidnapped along with four of his bodyguards, working for Canadian security firm GardaWorld, in May 2007. The hostage-takers have released several videos of the men since their capture.

“Over these last few months I can assure you that we've left no stone unturned in our efforts to release the hostages,” Brown said. “I just want to assure the public that every time I have been in touch with Prime Minister Maliki over these last two years this is an issue that has been right at the top of our agenda.”

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Saturday the three other hostages were in “grave danger” after the Iraqi authorities passed the remains of two men to British officials.

The Foreign Office the dead men were “highly likely” to be Jason Creswell, originally from Glasgow in Scotland, and Jason Swindlehurst, from northwest England. No details about where, when or how they died have been made public. Unconfirmed media reports last year said one of the hostages had killed himself.

Photo: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

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