British hostage endured mock executions in Iraq

In an interview with the Times newspaper, Moore said his kidnappers had links with the Iraqi government and denied U.S. intelligence assessments that he had been held for part of the time in Iran.

He said he and his four British guards were seized from an Iraqi Finance Ministry building in Baghdad in May 2007 by dozens of men in the uniforms of Iraqi security forces.

"They were Iraqi resistance. They have representation in the government," he said.

Moore denied the gang was acting on the orders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. "The only Iranian link is that there is an interest in Iran, probably covert funding by Iran," he told the Times.

His captors were convinced he was a military intelligence officer and questioned him for hours, he said.

Three of Moore's guards were killed by their captors, and the fourth was believed to have been killed although his body was never returned.

Moore said he endured several mock executions and spent two years of his captivity on his own, living in cramped rooms and guarded by a rotating group of insurgents. At times he was forced to lie for weeks on a mat, sitting up only to eat and standing only to go to the toilet.

At other times he was chained by one ankle to a grille over a window, handcuffed and blindfolded.

"At one point, they handcuffed me behind my back, stood me on a chair next to a door, put my hands over the top of the door, pulled down on the handcuffs and kicked the chair away," he said. "That was quite painful."