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March 11th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The British government’s stated policy is never to pay ransoms, but it does
not necessarily stand in the way of families or companies paying them,
especially if there is seen to be no other safe way of securing a hostage’s
release.
Last night a Foreign Office source said it was “not unusual” for kidnappers to
contact families directly, but denied that any request for money had been
made or that any cash had been handed over.
“There was never any coherent demand, and never any indication that the
hostages would be released,” he said. “The operation on Thursday morning
took place because there was an imminent threat to the hostages’ lives. The
idea that some deal was on the point of conclusion is not accurate.”
According to the news agency, the negotiations were being conducted through a
Mauritanian businessman and opposition politician, Mustafa Ould Imam Chafi,
who has also previously served as a special advisor to Blaise Compaore, the
president of the west African state of Burkina Faso.
Mr Chafi is known to have been involved in face-to-face talks to free other
AQIM hostages, including Robert R Fowler, a UN diplomat who was kidnapped by
AQIM in Niger in 2008 and held for 130 days. Mr Chafi and another
intermediary drove hundreds of miles into the desert to escort Mr Fowler and
three other hostages to safety. Last year a warrant went out for his arrest
in Mauritania, after he was accused of supporting terrorist groups in the
region, although he is thought to claim that the charges against him are
politically motivated.
Last night Mr Fowler, who writes about his kidnap ordeal in today’s Sunday
Telegraph, said he thought it was possible that Mr Chafi could have been
approached for help in the case.
“He was a man who knew the ground well, so I would imagine that anybody trying
to conduct similar negotiations with AQIM might well want to seek him out,”
said Mr Fowler.
The news agency also claimed that the British negotiators had been “more
intransigent” than the Italians in the course of talks. Unlike Downing
Street, the Italian government is widely known to take a “softer” approach
to kidnappings. It is reported to have paid ransoms to terrorist groups in
the past, including some $5 million to secure the release of two aid workers
kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents in 2004.
The claim that Britain had proved a less flexible negotiator than Italy has
fuelled speculation in Italy that Downing Street might have deliberately
declined to tell Rome of the pending raid because it feared the Italians
preferred to resolve the situation with a ransom.
“The English, like the Americans, don’t like to tell us about their operations
for the simple fact that we are considered trouble-makers, very often
preferring to avoid attempts to free hostages in favour of negotiating and
buying time,” yesterday’s La Stampa newspaper quoted an intelligence sources
as saying.
Additional reporting by Magdy Samaan in Cairo
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