'Exhumed body not of British kidnap victim'

LONDON, MARCH 27. Britain denied today that a body exhumed by the Indian police in Kashmir two years ago was that of the British kidnap victim, Paul Wells, missing since 1995.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said tests carried out by the British police contradicted the results of an Indian forensic investigation, which said in January that the remains matched the blood samples taken from Wells' parents.

``DNA tests in this country have established that the remains brought back to the U.K. ...are not those of Paul Wells.''

The remains also did not match any of the other hostages captured in Kashmir in July 1995 by the shadowy group Al-Faran.

Wells, fellow-Briton Keith Mangan and Americans Donald Hutchings and John Childs were captured on July 4 while trekking in the Himalayas.

Four days later, Childs escaped to freedom and the militants captured the German, Dirk Hasert, and the Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostro.

The following month, the Norwegian was found beheaded in a remote Kashmiri forest.

There has been no firm word on the fate of the other four men since their disappearance.

``It is not clear why there is a disparity between the different conclusions drawn by experts in the U.K. and those in India,'' the Foreign Office said, adding that the investigation into the hostages was continuing.

British officials cast doubt on the Indian findings when they were first announced, saying British forensic experts had carried out a dental records check and concluded that the remains uncovered by Indian police were not those of Wells.

Before the second year of the kidnapping, two captured militants from the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Ansar separatist group said they were told that the hostages had been shot and buried in a southern Kashmir forest.

- Reuters

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