Brown urges Iraq hostage takers to release Britons

Two dead British hostages named
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LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday urged those holding three British hostages captive in Iraq to release them immediately after the bodies of two other hostages were handed over by their kidnappers.
An Iraqi lawmaker said the two men apparently died a year ago, and the three remaining hostages were supposed to be released as part of an understanding that would allow the Shi'ite militant group that captured them to put down arms and join the political process.
"There is no evidence that either confirms or denies the other hostages are still alive except for a piece of evidence in March regarding one of them," said the lawmaker, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and asked not to be named.
Peter Moore, a computer instructor, was kidnapped along with his four bodyguards, employed by the Canadian security firm GardaWorld, in May 2007. The hostage-takers have released several videos of the men, including one in March that the lawmaker was referring to.
Brown said London and Baghdad were trying to bring an end to the ordeal of the remaining hostages as soon as possible.
He was speaking after his government confirmed the identities of the two dead men, handed over to Iraqi security forces two years after the five were seized 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.
The Iraqi parliamentarian said the two men whose bodies were handed over had apparently died a year ago.
"They couldn't be identified by the security men when they opened the boxes they were in," the MP said. "They said there were just skeletons left, not whole bodies."
He said there was no deal as such for the release of the other hostages except in the context of discussions between the government and the Shi'ite militants for an end to fighting.
If the group were to be permitted to join the political process, it would have to give up criminal activity, including holding hostages, and its leaders would also have to be freed from Iraqi and U.S. detention, the lawmaker said.
"Talks about the hostages were not the focus," he said.
"(The handing over of the bodies) was a good initiative by the group as they want to prove to the government that they are serious about joining the political process. Everybody is supposed to be released."
The decision by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair to send 45,000 soldiers to join the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein was deeply divisive at home.
Brown, who took over from Blair in June 2007, has announced an inquiry into Britain's role in the war. Only about 500 British troops remain in the country and Brown was keen to defend his government's handling of the hostage taking.
(Reporting by Adrian Croft and Kate Kelland in London and Khalid al-Ansary in Baghdad; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: Reuters