Briton tells of Iraq torture
2010-03-12 13:32
London - A Briton held hostage in Iraq for more than 2½ years has revealed harrowing details of the torture meted out to him by his captors.
In media interviews two months after his release, Peter Moore told of how he was subject to mock executions and hung from a door by his arms as a punishment.
The computer expert was released unharmed in December 2009 after 31 months in captivity during which all four of his bodyguards - abducted with him - are thought to have been killed.
Moore, aged 36, told The Times newspaper on Friday how guards put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, at the same time firing a live round from another weapon.
"I remember thinking: I'm dead. It's not that bad. It's not that painful. And then, reality check, hold on I'm handcuffed and still blindfolded. I can hear people laughing," he told the paper.
Moore was snatched in May 2007 with his four bodyguards from the finance ministry in Baghdad by a large group of gunmen from the League of the Righteous, a breakaway Shi'ite militia.
Screaming in pain
The bodies of three of the guards were handed to British officials last year and Moore was freed after several hundred insurgents from the group, including the leader, were released from US custody.
The fourth guard, 34-year-old Alan McMenemy, is also thought to have been killed.
In an interview broadcast on Channel 4 News television on Thursday, Moore told of how he was left "screaming in pain" during a torture session which ended with him hanging from a door by a pair of handcuffs.
After being blamed for breaking a padlock, he said his captors "stood me in a corner, initially handcuffed me behind my back, poured water over me".
They then "made me stand on the chair with my back to the door put my arms over the top, one of the guards pulled down on the handcuffs, pulled the chair away, just left me hanging there", added Moore.
"They wouldn't stop, they told me to be quiet... I was screaming in pain," he said.
