CAIRO — An Arab TV news network broadcast a portion of a video Tuesday showing a British hostage seized in Iraq nearly a year ago.
The station said the kidnappers were demanding that Britain free nine Iraqi prisoners.
The hostage, who has been identified as Peter Moore, was kidnapped by heavily armed men in police uniforms last May from the Iraqi Finance Ministry, together with four of his British security guards. They were driven away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad.
Moore, who worked for BearingPoint, a U.S.-based management-consulting firm, appeared in a track suit with a beard and looked as though he was in good health.
Al-Arabiya network said on its website that it received the video from a Shiite group that was offering the five Britons in exchange for nine of its men being held by British forces.
The British Foreign Office confirmed it had seen the video but would not identify the figure as Moore.
“We condemn the release of videos such as this, which are greatly distressing to the families of those involved,” said the statement.
