Hostage released
December 30, 2009
The British computer expert was released by his captors on Wednesday morning and is reportedly in good health at the British Embassy in Baghdad.
The 36-year-old IT consultant was working for the US firm BearingPoint when he was kidnapped in May of 2007. Some 40 gunmen took Moore, along with his four bodyguards, from outside Iraq's finance ministry. Three of Moore's British bodyguards were killed and a fourth is feared dead, Miliband said.
Reconciliation credited with release
Moore was kidnapped by a group called League of the Righteous, which is made up of militants formerly loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Iraq recently began a reconciliation effort with League of the Righteous and other militant groups in an attempt to get them to renounce violence.
"That process of reconciliation has made possible Peter Moore's release today," Miliband said. "I hope it will lead also to the end of the scourge of hostage-taking and violence."
An Iraqi government spokesman also attributed Moore's release to the "government efforts to achieve national reconciliation."
th/AFP/AP
Editor: Susan Houlton