Video footage purporting to show one of the five Britons kidnapped from an Iraqi government building in Baghdad eight months ago has been shown by al-Arabiya television station today.

The five civilians were abducted from the Iraqi Finance Ministry in May last year. They are believed to be four security guards who were working for a private firm and a financial expert who was advising the Iraqi government.

The video shows a man saying: “My name is Peter ... I have been held here for nearly eight months now.”

Al-Arabiya, an Arabic satellite channel, said the man also called on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to free nine Iraqis in exchange for releasing the five Britons.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the film would be “greatly distressing” to the men’s families and called on the kidnappers to release them immediately

In December the same Dubai-based channel broadcast film of another of the hostages, who identified himself as Jason, flanked by masked gunmen. That footage apparently filmed a month earlier was the first sign that the kidnapped men were alive.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, told The Times last year that he believed the men were snatched by rogue members of the Shia al-Mahdi Army.

The kidnapping dramatically changed the atmosphere in Baghdad, where foreign workers had previously been relatively safe once inside official buildings.

The brazen gang walked up to guards on duty at the Finance Ministry and were allowed inside after explaining that they were with the Commission on Public Integrity, an anti-fraud agency.

The men, who wore police uniforms, sealed off Palestine Street near the heavily fortified Green Zone and took the hostages with little or no violence.

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