The body of Alan McMenemy, the Glasgow man kidnapped in Iraq in 2007 and killed by his captors, has been handed over to the British Embassy in Baghdad. Mr McMenemy was working as a security guard in the Iraqi capital when he was abducted in 2007 with three colleagues as they were guarding a computer consultant working in the Iraqi ministry of finance.
The bodies of Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alan MacLachlan were transferred to the British embassy in 2009. Peter Moore, the computer consultant who was kidnapped at the same time, was released alive the same year. The Shiite militia responsible for kidnapping the men later said in a statement that the four security guards had been killed when trying to escape. Mr Moore had been held in a different location, and as a civilian was considered a lower risk by the guards.
It is not clear why the Shiite militia responsible for the kidnapping and deaths of the men waited more than two years to hand over the body of McMenemy.
Mr McMenemy’s widow, Rosaleen McMenemy, said: “Our families have suffered terrible uncertainty and distress over the past four years and eight months. We have worried about Alan every single minute of each waking day. We now know that we will shortly have Alan home again. This will allow us to properly grieve for him and we will draw some comfort from the fact that we have him home at last.”