William Hague said Brendan Vaughan likely to have been murdered by al-Qaida-affiliated group along with six others
Tributes have been paid to a British construction worker feared to have been executed by Islamist hostage-takers in Nigeria on Saturday.
The foreign secretary, William Hague, said on Sunday that Brendan Vaughan was "likely to have been killed at the hands of his captors" along with six other foreign workers in "an unforgiveable act of pure cold-blooded murder".
The announcement followed 24 hours of uncertainty after the al-Qaida-affiliated Nigerian Islamist group Ansaru released an image online of what appeared to be several dead bodies. Vaughan, who was working for the Lebanese construction company Setraco, was abducted with colleagues from Greece, Italy and Lebanon on 16 February.
No further details about Vaughan have been released but the construction worker, originally from Leeds, appears to have started a new life in Thailand with girlfriend Orasa Arpornkaew. Tributes were posted to him on Facebook, including from Arpornkaew, who wrote: "Your always in my heart. A friend, Dom Cooney, posted: "cant believe it. he was like an ox."
Vaughan's Facebook page includes details of where he was working in Nigeria and photos of armed protection guards at his compound.
Four Lebanese construction workers were also killed as well as an Italian and a Greek. An intelligence source in the Nigerian capital Abuja named the Italian as Silvano Trevisan, adding that he had been suffering from hypertension and heart problems.
A silent video posted on the internet by Ansaru dated 9 March shows a gunman standing next to a pile of bodies, followed by a series of closeups of their faces lit up by a torch. It is entitled in Arabic "The Killing of the seven Christian hostages in Nigeria." A caption underneath says in Arabic and in English: "In the name of Allah Most Beneficient Most Merciful".
The killings are thought to be the most deadly Islamist terrorist attack yet against foreigners in Nigeria. The foreign workers were based in Jama'are, a town about 125 miles north of Bauchi, where militant Islamists have launched numerous attacks in an effort to destabilise the government of president Goodluck Jonathan and create Islamic rule.
Ansaru, a splinter group independent from Boko Haram, the main terrorist group in northern Nigeria, claimed responsibility and announced on Saturday it had killed "all the seven Christian foreigners".
Experts on Islamist terrorism in the west African country said the killings were further evidence that Ansaru was focused on attacking foreign nationals in an attempt to internationalise a bloody internal conflict that has led to Boko Haram claiming the lives of more than 1,500 Nigerians since 2009.
Ansaru was responsible for the killing of British construction worker Christopher McManus, 28 and his Italian colleague Franco Lamolinara, 47, in February 2012.
The group said the latest killings were in retaliation for what it believed to be attempts by the British and Nigerian governments to rescue them. They cited local media reports that British military planes had been seen at the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport, 200 miles away in Abuja, and suggestions they were in the area to launch a rescue mission.
The Ministry of Defence indicated no such operation was under way, a position backed by the Italian and Greek governments.
"We are supporting the French in their activities in Mali which includes transporting equipment and manpower," an MoD spokeswoman said.
"Responsibility for this tragic outcome rests squarely with the terrorists," said Hague. "I am grateful to the Nigerian government for their unstinting help and co-operation. We are utterly determined to work with them to hold the perpetrators of this heinous act to account, and to combat the terrorism which so blights the lives of people in northern Nigeria and in the wider region."
A message was posted on an Islamist website claiming that Ansaru members had killed the hostages after reports of the British warplanes in Abuja.
But the group cited a report on a Nigerian website dated 23 February, two weeks earlier, which also included a quote from the British high commissioner in Nigeria, Rob Fitzpatrick, describing the presence of the planes as "routine military-to-military engagement".
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