MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia on Friday urged pirates holding a British couple they kidnapped more than three months ago to release them immediately and without preconditions.

"We urge the Somali pirates to release the old British couple unconditionally," Labour Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir told a news conference in Mogadishu's presidential palace.

"We also urge the British government and all Somalis to participate in releasing the couple whatever the means. They are innocent Britons in the hands of criminals," he added.

Paul Chandler, 60, and his wife, Rachel, 56, are being held in separate locations under 24-hour guard after having been kidnapped by pirates in late October.

The couple, from Turnbridge Wells, Kent, in southeast England, were seized in the Indian Ocean aboard their 38-foot (12-m) yacht soon after they left Seychelles.

The Chandlers appealed last week to the British government to save them.