PLANS are being made to repatriate the body of Alan McMenemy, the Scottish hostage whose body has been handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad five years after he was kidnapped.
The embassy confirmed the body handed over was that of McMenemy, a security guard from Glasgow, who was snatched in Iraq in 2007 by gunmen along with three other guards and a British IT consultant from Lincoln whom they were protecting.
After his body was handed over yesterday, his widow, Roseleen McMenemy of Milngavie, near Glasgow, said his family can now "draw some comfort from the fact that we have him home at last".
The only one of the men to be released alive was the man the bodyguards were protecting, Peter Moore, who was freed in December 2009.
The bodies of the three other guards were passed to British authorities in Iraq that same year.
Alec MacLachlan, 30, from Llanelli, south Wales, Jason Swindlehurst, 38, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and Jason Creswell, 39, originally from Glasgow, were abducted with 36-year-old Moore and McMenemy, who was 34 at the time.
They were snatched by militants posing as police at the Iraqi finance ministry.
Yesterday, Moore said the handing over of the body would allow some closure for McMenemy's family: "I was told in early 2009, while I was still a hostage, that all the others had been killed, so the fact that the body's been handed over is no surprise," he said.
"I know that the leader of the militia made a statement a couple of weeks ago, saying Alan had been killed and that they could release the body but they were talking about logistical problems. I am a little surprised it's been handed over so soon, following that statement, I have to say."
Mrs 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 him home again. This will allow us to properly grieve for him and we will draw some comfort from the fact we have him home at last. I would like to thank my family, friends, colleagues, organisations and others too numerous to name who have stood with us over this most difficult time. Without their support we would not have made it through these dark days.
"I would respectfully ask that we as a family are allowed the space and time to grieve in our own way, and if at all possible to attempt to return to some form of normal life."
McMenemy's father, Dennis McMenemy, from Dumbarton, who has blamed his son's fate on the British Government's "scandalous" handling of the crisis, was said to be bitter about his son's death, accusing the Foreign Office of not having done enough to secure his release.
He is not making any public statement about the release of his body at the moment, but a close friend said: "Relieved is not a word to describe how he feels at the moment."
Prime Minister David Cameron said: "It is with great sadness that I can confirm that the British Embassy in Baghdad received a body today that has been identified as Alan McMenemy, who was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2007.
"My thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."
He said of the McMenemy family: "They have waited so long for his return and I hope that this will allow them to find some peace after an ordeal no family should ever have to suffer."
An inquest into the deaths of McMenemy's colleagues heard that the security guards collected Moore from his accommodation in the green zone of Baghdad.
The hearing at Trowbridge, Wiltshire, in June last year heard that, on May 29, 2007, the guards, who were armed with automatic rifles and pistols, escorted him to the Ministry of Finance where he was helping to install a new financial IT system.
At about 11.40am, between 50 and 100 armed men, dressed in police and military uniforms, converged on the building and took the five men, the inquest heard.
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