BEIRUT, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- DNA test results showed that the body recovered by an official British team in Lebanon's Bekaa valley was that of British journalist Alec Collett who disappeared more than two decades ago, daily As-Safir reported on Friday.

    The British team searching for Collett announced that they recovered human remains on Tuesday in an area called Khellit al-Zayti, on the edge of the town of Aita al-Fakhar in the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon.

    "The DNA test results showed that the body recovered by the British team was indeed that of U.K. journalist Alec Collett," the newspaper reported, saying that the British Foreign office confirmed the hunt on Wednesday.

    After concluding their mission, the British team left the Bekaaarea, and the body was transferred to a hospital in Beirut before being carried back to his country.

    Positive identification will put an end to one of the most gruesome abduction that dominated world headlines from Lebanon during its civil war between 1975 and 1990.

    Alec Collett was kidnapped at a gunpoint in Beirut in 1985 during the civil war of the country. At that time, a group calling itself "the Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims" said it killed Collett in retaliation for the U.S. bombing of Libya.

    The then 64-year-old freelance journalist was in Lebanon to visit Palestinian refugee camps for the UN Relief and Works Agency. During the three-month assignment, he was expected to pass information to the international media on potentially major stories.

    Until this week, the organization has tried several times in vain to find his body and there have been numerous false alarms.