Norman Kember, the 74-year-old hostage freed in an SAS raid after four months' captivity in Iraq, flew out of Baghdad tonight to rejoin his wife and family in Britain.

Mr Kember's departure on a UK transport plane was announced by Christian Peacemaker Teams, the group he was representing when he was abducted in Baghdad in November with three colleagues, one of whom was later murdered.

It was later reported that he would fly first to Kuwait, and would arrive in Britain tomorrow. British officials refused to discuss his travel plans.

But he will arrive back to a growing debate about whether it is right for anti-war campaigners to put others' lives at risk by visiting Iraq.

That debate was stoked by Terry Waite, the former Beirut hostage, who questioned the actions of Mr Kember and his colleagues as it emerged that another British member of the group plans to return to Iraq. Jan Benvie, from Edinburgh, defended her right to visit Baghdad against Foreign Office advice, saying: "In general, we allow adults to make their own decisions about their lives."

Mr Waite, who spent 1,760 days incarcerated by Islamic Jihad, told GMTV: "The first thing I would say is, I applaud the motives of anyone who wishes to work for peace. The situation in Iraq is dreadful, the ordinary civilian population are suffering terribly and it is something to be commended to go and stand alongside such people.

"I question, though, the tactic, because I think the situation in Iraq is so vastly different to when I was negotiating 20 years ago. It has become so much more polarised and anyone, any foreigner, particularly from the West, given the history of the West in Iraq in recent years, is exposed to very grave danger, not only for political reasons but for criminal reasons also.

"Many people say that’s a risk we understand and are willing to take - people have to take their own decision and make their own responsible decision about that. The only problem with that is that as you take that stance, you do involve other people in the situation, and in your situation, and that might be a problem.

"As I say, I applaud the motive but at this stage I question the tactic."

Mr Waite went to Lebanon in January 1987 as an envoy of Robert Runcie, then Arcbishop of Canterbury, to try to secure the release of four hostages, including the journalist John McCarthy. He ended up being taken hostage himself by the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad, and was not released until November 1991.

Mr Kember was abducted in Baghdad on November 26 with two Canadians, Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, and an American, Tom Fox. Appeals by friends and family, and by prominent Muslims in Britain, including the detained terror suspect Abu Qatada, failed to secure their release and Mr Fox's battered body was found dumped in Baghdad on March 9.

Meanwhile, UK and US special forces had been painstakingly gathering intelligence and training for a rescue operation, which was finally launched yesterday morning after an Iraqi detainee gave away the location of the house in west Baghdad where they had been held.

Mr Kember and his two Canadian colleagues were found bound up in a ground floor room but there was no sign of their kidnappers, who had fled as the net closed in on them, and no shots were fired.

In a statement from Baghdad this morning, Mr Kember, a retired professor, said: "I have had the opportunity to have a shave, a relax in the bath and a good English breakfast. I’m very much looking forward to getting home to British soil and to being reunited with my family."

In an interview with a New Zealand radio station from the family home in Pinner, Middlesex, Mr Kember's wife, Pat, said that she was "thrilled" to hear of her husband's release.

She said: "I thought when he wanted to go to Iraq he was a bit silly but on the other hand, I knew he felt he must do something and he is getting old. If he doesn’t do something specific, it would be too late. But I thought he might be blown up by a bomb, I did not really expect him to be taken hostage."

In his first public comment on the release, Tony Blair today praised the courage and commitment of the troops involved in the rescue and implicitly joined the criticism of those who refused to accept Foreign Office advice against travel to the region.

He added: "The people who are trying to wreck the possibility of peace in Iraq are the small number of terrorists and insurgents who want to destroy the democratic process. I want to emphasise this when we are talking about peace, we are the people trying to create peace in Iraq and the people fighting us and taking people hostage are the people trying to destroy that process."

It was an argument that carried little weight with Ms Benvie, who has been to Iraq before and said that she would be returning despite what happened to Mr Kember. "We make it clear that if we are kidnapped, we do not want there to be force or any form of violence used to release us," she said. "If the Government or military commanders choose to do that, that is their responsibility."

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