British citizen and computer expert Peter Moore was freed today two-and-a-half years after he was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad, the British Foreign Office confirmed this morning.

Peter Moore, kidnapped in May 2007 by Iraqi insurgents, was released into British custody today. Photo credit: UK Foreign Office

Peter Moore, kidnapped in May 2007 by Iraqi insurgents, was released into British custody today. Photo credit: UK Foreign Office

Moore was one of five men seized from the Iraqi finance ministry in May 2007, CNN reported this morning; the other four men were security guards. The bodies of two of the men were handed over to British officials the month after the kidnapping, while the body of a third man was given over to authorities this summer. The fifth man has likely been killed, British officials say, and they ask his kidnappers to return his body.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said, in a statement released on the Foreign Office website, that Moore was freed by his captors early this morning and is currently at the British Embassy in Baghdad. He is in good health, despite his more than two-year ordeal, and is undergoing mental health checks ahead of being sent back home. Miliband also asked that the media “continue to show the impressive restraint and sensitivity that has marked this case,” and to allow Moore and his family “time and space to come to terms with his release.”

“Hostage taking is never justified in [sic],” Miliband continued. “It is a heinous crime. Iraqis are steadily building a political consensus about their future and abandoning the violence that has so blighted their recent past. For many months now the Government of Iraq has been taking forward a process of reconciliation with armed groups prepared to renounce violence. That process of reconciliation has made possible Peter Moore’s release today. I hope it will help lead to an end to the scourge of hostage taking and violence in that country.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown also expressed his relief at Moore’s safe return and demanded that his kidnappers also return the body of the fifth man feared dead, the BBC reported: “I am hugely relieved by the wonderful news that Peter has been freed,” Brown said. “At this moment of celebration, we also remember the families of British hostages who have been killed in Iraq and elsewhere.”

A little known-group calling itself The Islamic Shiite Resistance of Iraq took responsibility for the kidnappings, CNN reported.