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Exclusive IT consultant Peter Moore - now back in Britain after being held hostage by kidnappers in Iraq for two and a half years - will be paid in full for the time he spent in captivity, The Register has learned.

Moore was seized along with four British security operatives at the Iraqi finance ministry in 2007, by a large party of Shi'ite gunmen masquerading as police. Moore is thought to be the only survivor of the group, with the bodies of three of the security men having been returned to the British government and the fourth, Alan McMenemy, also believed dead.

USAID policy is that any personnel kidnapped while on the job are paid in full for time spent incarcerated, and a spokesman for Moore confirmed to the Reg today that this will apply in his case.

The British government has stated that "no substantive concessions" were made to secure Moore's release, though it has been widely reported that his captors waited until a Shi'ite cleric named Qais al-Ghazali - seized by the SAS in 2007 and then passed to US military custody - was freed before releasing Moore.

However the Iraqi government and the US have stated that al-Ghazali would have been set free anyway as a result of phased releases of US military prisoners taking place this year. Members of al-Ghazali's group, the "Righteous League", have been released along with others linked to the well-known Shi'ite firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr.

The exact rates to be paid to Moore for his 31 months in captivity have not been disclosed, but the level of danger to foreigners in Iraq was very high in the years 2006-07, and pay rates for such workers generally reflected this. ®

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