Al-Jazeera Shows Video of Iraq Hostages

A video showing the kidnapped British activist Norman Kember and three other western hostages was tonight broadcast by Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera.

A previously unknown Iraqi group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade said it was holding the four men and showed a passport belonging to 74-year-old Mr Kember.

A white-haired man - believed to be the abducted Briton - could also be seen sitting on the floor next to three other men in the video.

Mr Kember, who was in Iraq with the Christian Peacemaker Teams group, was kidnapped on Saturday with two Canadians and a US citizen.

Both the British government and the humanitarian group have confirmed that Mr Kember is missing.

In the video, the group claimed the four were "spies" working undercover as Christian peace activists.

Mr Kember, from Pinner, north London, has a lifetime committment to peace campaigning. One friend who knew him through their work among Harrow's churches, yesterday said he was a Christian who worked tirelessly to help people in need.

"He is extremely single-minded and dedicated in caring for people in any kind of distress," Enid Ellis, 82, told the Press Association. "He is really inspired by his Christian faith."

A former secretary of the Baptist Peace Fellowship and a trustee of the Christian peace organisation the Fellowship for Reconciliation, Mr Kember wrote on the fellowship's website earlier this year of his concern that he was a "cheap" peacemaker.

Being in Britain "talking, writing, demonstrating" about peace was in no way taking risks like young servicemen in Iraq, he wrote.

Hundreds of foreigners and Iraqis have been seized in Iraq in the past 18 months, prompting many aid agencies to leave the country.