A British hostage was killed by his captors in Nigeria yesterday when a UK Special Forces rescue operation ended in tragedy.

Chris
McManus was executed by gunmen as members of the Special Boat Service
and Nigerian soldiers moved in on the Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists’
hideaway.Fellow hostage, Italian Franco Lamolinara, was also killed. The pair had been held for ten months.


Fears for Mr McManus’s welfare had
intensified following the release of a video in August showing the
28-year-old engineer blindfolded alongside three armed men.One of the terrorists said it would be the ‘last message’ to David Cameron about the hostage.
Yesterday the Prime Minister broke the
news of the execution to Mr McManus’s family in a personal phone call
before making a public statement in which he appeared emotional.It
is the second time he has ordered a hostage rescue mission that has
failed. Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove died when Special Forces
tried to rescue her from the Taliban in Afghanistan.Mr
Cameron had also telephoned his Italian counterpart Mario Monti to tell
him of the failed operation – but last night there was growing anger in
Italy as it became clear that Rome was informed of the raid to free the
hostages only once it had got underway.Further details of the rescue bid were
emerging last night, but it remained unknown whether Mr McManus and Mr
Lamolinara – a 48-year-old father of two – died before or during the
operation.There were reports the men may have been held in a house in Sokoto, a city in Nigeria’s north-west.

One
witness said: ‘The security agencies tried to break into the house but
there was resistance. The people inside the house were shooting at them
and they returned fire.
None of the 20 strong British rescue
force was injured and Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan said all the
terrorists had been arrested.The
rescue was triggered when – after months of searching – the SBS found
the heavily protected location where the men were being held.Mr
Cameron said authorities had decided to go ahead with the rescue after
receiving ‘credible information about [the men’s] location’.‘A
window of opportunity arose to secure their release. We also had reason
to believe that their lives were under imminent and growing danger,’ he
insisted.The Prime Minister said it was ‘with
great regret’ that he had to announce Mr McManus, from Oldham, and Mr
Lamolinara had lost their lives in the subsequent operation.‘I
am very sorry that this ended so tragically,’ he stressed, adding:
‘Terrorism and appalling crimes such as these are a scourge on our
world. No one should be in any doubt about our determination to fight
and to defeat them.’ Mr
McManus, a contract worker for an Italian construction company, was
kidnapped by gunmen in May last year after they stormed his apartment in
Birnin-Kebbi in the north-west of Nigeria.Mr
Lamolinara, a 48-year-old father of two of Gattinara near Turin, was
also taken. A German colleague escaped by scaling a wall despite being
shot and injured.Last night Mr McManus’s parents, two brothers and sister issued a statement thanking all involved in the attempted rescue.

It said: ‘We are of course devastated by the news of Chris’s death, which we received earlier today.



‘During this ordeal we have relied
heavily on the support of our family and friends which has never waned
and has enabled us to get through the most difficult of times.‘We
are also aware of the many people who were working to try and have
Chris returned to our family, and his girlfriend. We would like to thank
all of them for their efforts.’ The
family said they were confident ‘everything that could be done was
being done’ during their ten-month ordeal and sent their condolences to
relatives of the other dead hostage.’ The kidnapped men had been working on building a bank in the city, the capital of the lawless Kebbi province.

In
August a Nigerian group calling itself ‘Al Qaeda in the land beyond the
Sahel’ claimed responsibility for the kidnap and released the video
showing Mr McManus, in a Manchester United shirt, with three men armed
with Kalashnikov rifles and a machete.He
pleaded for the British Government to answer the demands of the group
to save his life. One of the kidnappers then said the British Government
had failed to answer its demands and it was given two weeks to ‘take
the correct decision’.Yesterday,
security officials said they believed the kidnappers were from a
splinter group of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has
links to Al Qaeda.Sources
said Ministry of Defence officials approached Mr Cameron on Wednesday
evening and made it clear they believed there was a ‘time-limited
opportunity’ to mount an attempt to free the men.The
Prime Minister took the decision to go ahead and then followed the
operation ‘in real time’ yesterday morning. A meeting of the
Government’s emergency committee Cobra was convened, but word came back
that the two men had been killed by their captors.The
Italian prime minister’s office said that it had been ‘constantly in
touch with British authorities but that the operation had got underway
with the Nigerians and British forces with Italy informed once it had
begun’.Former Italian prime
minister Massimo D’Alema said: ‘I want full light to be shed on why
Italy was only informed once the operation had started.’
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