Iraqi kidnappers abandon govt talks (AFP)

NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) –

The radical Shiite group that kidnapped five Britons in Baghdad more than two years ago said on Tuesday it had broken off talks with Iraq's government over integration into the political process.

The talks began four months ago when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met members of the League of the Righteous, which has renounced violence, but collapsed because the government refused to free the group's leader from jail, one of its senior members told AFP.

"The negotiations with the government have stopped because we have not reached agreement and because they refuse to free Qais al-Khazaali," Salam al-Maliki, a former transport minister, said.

"For this reason, we will not participate in the upcoming elections," he added of parliamentary elections slated for next year, but whose precise date has not yet been finalised.

Khazaali is being held at a US detention facility in Camp Cropper on Baghdad's outskirts.

In March, the League of the Righteous said it would release the five Britons it had kidnapped in exchange for 10 of its leaders being held by American forces in Iraq.

Since then, four of the Britons have been confirmed dead, with only IT consultant Peter Moore believed to be still alive.

The group kidnapped the five from the finance ministry in Baghdad in May 2007, in an audacious operation by around 40 heavily armed militants posing as security personnel.

The League of the Righteous is made up of militants who broke away from the Mahdi army, the formerly armed militia group loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The group is also suspected of being behind an attack in January 2007 that killed one US soldier and led to the abduction of four others. They too were later found dead.

On April 1, Iraq's Committee for National Reconciliation said it had begun talks with the League of the Righteous, but did not make any specific mention of the hostages.

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