Hostage was ‘brutally murdered’ by Iraq abductors

Security guard Alan McMenemy was snatched in Baghdad by gunmen, along with three other guards and an IT expert they were protecting in 2007.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told MPs yesterday an inquest into his death found he had been unlawfully killed.

The body of Mr McMenemy, who was from Glasgow, was returned to the UK in January. The only one of the men to be released alive was the subject of the bodyguards’ protection, Peter Moore, who was freed on 30 December 2009, 946 days after he was kidnapped.

The bodies of the three other guards were passed to British authorities in Iraq the same year.

Alec MacLachlan, 30, from South Wales, Jason Swindlehurst, 38, from Lancashire, and Jason Creswell, 39, originally from Glasgow, were abducted with computer expert Mr Moore, 36, and Mr McMenemy, who was 34 at the time. They were snatched by militants  posing as police at the Iraqi  finance ministry.

Inquests into the deaths of the other three guards last year concluded they were unlawfully killed. Mr Hague said Wiltshire coroner David Ridley had now recorded the same verdict on Mr McMenemy.

“I am sure that the House joins me in extending our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Alan McMenemy,” Mr Hague saidl

In a statement released by the Foreign Office, Mr McMenemy’s widow, Roseleen McMenemy, said: “Alan is now home. This has been the most tragic period for us and our grief and sadness continues.”