Should Payment on ransoms be illegal?

According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, “ransom” is   “A sum of money etc. paid or demanded for the release of a prisoner or the restoration of captured property”.  The emotional blackmail intrinsic to a ransom claim gives the captor supreme power over those targeted to pay the ransom particularly where the “captured property” is a human being(s).   Where the captured prize may be a ship or a quantity of oil/cargo, the value is more academic but still boils down to dollars and cents.  These opportunities have been spotted by criminals and pirates for centures.  Tales of Captin Morgan in the Carribean have a legendary mystique.  Al-Qaeda merely sees   ransom demands as a simple income device which it is implementing as fast as its tentacles encroach around the world.

Between 1992 and 2007, Al-Qaeda-linked-Abu Sayyaf terrorist organization in the Philippines, collected an estimated US$31 million from ransom payments and an unspecified amount from extortion, according to the then Police Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Mendoza.  Mendoza had made extensive studies on Al-Qaeda-linked militants in the Philippines, and in August 2008 was calling for ransom payments to radical Islamic groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, to be declared a crime, thereby cutting off their main financial source.  The Philippines government is opposed to paying kidnap ransom but passed no law to prohibit it.

Last July, 2009, leaders of  the African Union, comprising 53 states,  met for a summit in Libya and passed a resolution condemning the payment of kidnap ransoms to free hostages.  The resolution went as far as saying the practice should be made illegal but again they did not ban it: "The (AU) vigorously condemns the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups to secure the freedom of hostages ... (and) asks the international community to criminalize the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups."

The debate was initiated due to the kidnappings of foreigners in Northern Africa, and potential subsequent payments made to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who claimed responsibility for the kidnappings of two Canadian diplomats and four European tourists in 2008.  In fact, it is thought AQIM bought at least one of the hostages, Edwin Dyer, a British tourist, from Tuareg rebels.  Dyer was then used as ransom to demand the release of the fundamentalist cleric Abu Qatada held in Britain.  As well it was rumoured that a ransom payment of  £8.6 million had been demanded.  The Canadian diplomats were freed and some of the hostages, for whom ransoms were paid

However, Dyer was not so lucky and he was killed by AQIM since the British Government met none of their demands.  It is worth noting the statement made by AQIM at the time: 'The British captive was killed so that he, and with him the British state, may taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the Crusader and Jewish coalition to the east and to the west.'  This was interpreted by Hamid Ghomrassa, a security expert in North Africa, who said Dyer’s murder and the consequent message meant that  “Al Qaeda's threats should be taken seriously, and from now on the West should understand that paying ransoms to get back hostages is the only way to deal.'  Britain, however, has long held to the policy that ransom payment and hostage deals are out of the question, and the government has consistently refused to consider them. 

This is a hot topic currently with the fate of the British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, kidnapped from their yacht off the Tanzanian coast by Somali pirates, swinging in the balance.  Again the British Government has refused to sanction ransom payments being made to the pirates for the couple’s release.  Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on January 24th said: "Our position is absolutely clear. The British government never makes substantive concessions to hostage-takers, including in respect of ransom payments, and we always advise people of that.  Can we stop private individuals? No, we can't. But we have a very clear policy of our own and the British government is absolutely clear it is not in our interests."  There is no law in Britain to make the payment of ransoms illegal although the Government may actively obstruct ransom payments. Nick Davis of the not-for-profit Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre attests to this when his efforts to secure a ransom agreement to release the Chandlers was blocked.

Yet other governments and certainly companies will pay huge ransoms for the release of their property, most notably recently cargo ships, hi-jacked by Somali pirates.  In January this year, a ransom of between $5.5 and $7 million, according to unnamed sources interviewed by the Reuters news agency, was handed over to Somali pirates to obtain the release the oil tanker the MV Maran Centaurus, captured in November 2009.  This ship was carrying 2 million barrels of oil.  Prior to this, the Saudi owned Sirius Star had been released for a forfeit of $3 million in 2008.  According to Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, the Maran Centaurus hijacking was a "jackpot to the pirates".

Just recently, the Somali pirates have been given two more ships’ ransoms. The owners of the Singapore-flagged chemical tanker, M/V Pramoni paid an unknown amount of ransom on Thursday February 25th; the ship was released the next day. The Greek owned Panama-flagged bulk carrier, Navios Apollon was similarly released this weekend February 27th/28th.  It is insidious that the amount of ransom paid is still undisclosed. 

Where will this end?  Could it stop if the world unilaterally agreed to stand up to those who demand ransom payments, be they Somali pirates or Al-Qaeda terrorists.  Piracy in the Gulf of Aden is attracting wide international attention, not just in the newsreels but militarily.  There are warships from well over 30 nations now involved in patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean of the East coast of Africa.  The international will to defeat the pirates is there.  If the shipping companies would coalesce and agree not to pay more, the Somalis, in the first instance, would meet a dead end. If the UN International Security Council would declare the payments of ransom illegal, might the message to all terrorists and pirates that kidnap and extortion are unprofitable, begin to take effect? 

Balanced against this, “criminalizing the payment of ransom, however, is contentious because ransoms are usually paid under duress to save the lives of loved ones”, said Philippines state prosecutor Manny Velasco in 2008. Italy in 1991, and Columbia, illegalized ransom payments.  In Italy, a kidnap victim’s estate and the assets of his entire family are immediately frozen, the aim being to dissuade kidnappers that there is anything to gain.  The net result is that the only people who suffer are the victims, for kidnapping in Italy continues today.  Columbia is still the kidnap capital of the world, although there has been a decline in the numbers kidnapped.  Official figures for 2008 give a number of 437 hostages taken compares to 2,882 in 2002.  Unofficial figures estimate many more kidnaps occurred.  Nonetheless, there has been a reduction since the previous decade though the reasons are difficult to assess. Has Government pressure helped?  Perhaps.  Certainly the local people of Columbia have led numerous campaigns against the kidnappers. It is unlikely though that any law passed to criminalise ransom payments has had any effect.  Al-Qaeda and the Somali pirates are equally unlikely to bow to such pressure. There really is no easy answer.

February 28th 2010