Friends of a motorcycle- loving computer consultant who was kidnapped with his bodyguards as he worked in Iraq’s finance ministry 18 months ago are launching a campaign to increase pressure for the men’s release.

They say Peter Moore, 32, who took a lucrative job in Baghdad to pay off his student loan after years of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) on an allowance of £140 a month, is strong-willed and will not be defeated by his ordeal.

However, they fear he and the other hostages — two Jasons, Alan, a father of two from Scotland, and Alec — have been forgotten because of a virtual news blackout imposed by the government. Their full names have been withheld at the request of the Foreign Office’s advice to the families.

Moore’s friends have set up a website — www.4pete.org — which explains why they are defying the official line that publicity could jeopardise efforts to help the hostages.

“It is to be hoped that if more can be known about Pete and the ideals he represented, then pressure can be brought to bear upon those in a position to negotiate for his and his fellow captives’ release,” the site says.

It claims that the cases of Terry Waite, the Church of England envoy freed in Beirut in 1991 after four years in captivity, and Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist who was held in Gaza for four months last year, suggest that sustained campaigns can produce results.

This weekend two of Moore’s friends released extracts from his e-mails to show how frightening life had become in the two months between his arrival in Baghdad and his abduction. No sooner had he reached the beleaguered city than he came under fire in the green zone where he lived while working for BearingPoint, a US management and technology consultancy.

“On my second day I was walking down the road in the green zone when a mortar landed about 50 metres away. Scared the hell out of me. Had to hide in a bunker for half an hour,” he wrote to a Dutch friend, Koenraad Backers, a business consultant.

He added: “Can’t do any motorcycling here. Whenever I go out I have to go in a vehicle convoy with loads of guards.”

To Amber Foley, an occupational therapist from Portlaoise in Ireland, Moore wrote: “We had a mortar hit the side of the building I was working in today. I was sat at a desk inside, on the other side of the wall. I am OK . . . but one person was injured — they were leaning on the wall when it was hit. Sorry to go on but this was a bit too close for my liking.”

On May 16, 2007, he told Foley he was due to start IT training in the finance ministry — outside the green zone — the following week. “To be honest, I sometimes feel safer there as I am less of a target,” he said. He added that he hoped to visit Foley in June or July.

Instead, he was seized with his guards on May 29 when about 40 armed men in police uniforms stormed the ministry. Nothing was heard of Moore until February, when he appeared in a video appealing to Gordon Brown to free some Iraqi prisoners. The main aim of the hostage takers, the

Shi’ite Islamic Resistance in Iraq, is the release of Qais al-Khazaali, a former chief spokesman for the Mahdi Army, who is in American detention.

In July the captors claimed in another video passed to The Sunday Times that a bodyguard, named as Jason, had committed suicide. This has not been officially confirmed.

Moore’s friend Judith Dutton, an occupational therapist from Gloucester, said she had repeatedly contacted Gillian Merron, the MP for his home town of Lincoln. “Every time I mention him she has nothing to come back with,” Dutton said. “It’s a total shutdown.”

She added: “We don’t want to be fobbed off any more. It’s time to start something new.”

Gina Carew-Jones, a teacher trainer from Braintree, Essex, said that even in Guyana, where Moore did his VSO, there had been a vigil for him. “Yet here, nothing,” she said. “We feel no one is fighting for him.”

Several friends who knew Moore in Guyana gathered last week to discuss tactics at the Oxford home of David Thomas, 36, an engineer. The two flew out to Guyana together in 2004.

Moore was teaching computer studies, but his class had no computers. “Pete made computers out of cardboard boxes, complete with return and delete keys, to teach his students,” Thomas recalled with a smile.

Moore turned down better-paid work in Africa in part because he believed he could “help Iraq’s government to help its people”, his friends said.

“Pete is someone worth fighting for and I want to see those in a position to work for his and his fellow captives’ release redouble their efforts,” said Thomas.

The Foreign Office said: “We remain deeply concerned about the five hostages. We and their families have called for their unconditional humanitarian release. We are working closely with the Iraq government and US authorities and remain willing to work with any others who can help.”

Moore’s friends plan a vigil at St Bride’s church in Fleet Street, London, on December 12 and they continue to write. “We send e-mails to Peter, knowing that he is definitely not getting them. But at least when he comes out he would know that he was never forgotten,” Thomas said.

— Two Iraqis accused of executing two captured British soldiers have been granted thousands of pounds of legal aid to fight an attempt to hand them to the

Iraqi courts for trial. The British lawyer acting for Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi, who are in British custody in Iraq, is to argue in the High Court in London that they would not get a fair trial. They are accused of shooting Staff Segeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, in 2003.