BUFFALO — A body recovered in Iraq was identified yesterday as that of an Army veteran who was working as a contractor when he was kidnapped with four others more than a year ago, Jonathon Cote.

“Mr. Cote’s remains are in the United States and will be returned to his family,” a statement by FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko in Washington said.

Cote’s father said on his Web log on the family’s Web site that his 25-year-old son’s body was positively identified at Dover Air Force Base after being recovered Saturday, but that the family had not received autopsy results.

On the Web site, Francis Cote asked reporters to refrain from calling to allow the family “to grieve in peace.” He scheduled a press conference for this afternoon.

Jonathon Cote, of the Buffalo suburb of Getzville, was working for Crescent Security Group when he was kidnapped with three other Americans and an Austrian on November 16, 2006. In all, six contractors were kidnapped in two separate incidents over a two-month span. Their case received attention in March when the severed fingers of five of the men were sent to the U.S. military in Iraq.

The FBI earlier identified the remains of CSG employees Paul Johnson-Reuben of Minneapolis, Joshua Munns of Redding, Calif., John Roy Young of Kansas City, Mo., Bert Nussbaumer of Austria, and Ronald Withrow of Roaring Springs, Texas, who was working for JPI Worldwide and abducted on January 5, 2007.

After the bodies of the others were recovered, Francis Cote said he held out hope that his son had escaped his captors and was in hiding.

“We truly believe that there will be a miracle,” he said during a prayer service for his son last month.