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March 08, 2005

Giuliana Sgrena: No Ransom Paid?

If you believe those who kidnapped Sgrena, there was no ransom after all:

The suspected kidnappers of former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena said in a video broadcast by Italian media on Tuesday that no ransom was paid to end the journalist's month-long captivity.

"The insurgency refuses to be paid," the voice-over of the video shown by public RAI television and news channel Sky24 said.

The suspected abductors also claimed that the United States had sought to kill Sgrena who was wounded when a US patrol opened fire on her vehicle on the road to Baghdad airport on Friday.

Wait a minute, didn't Sgrena say the U.S. soldiers tried to kill her because they did not like the idea of paying ransoms to terrorists? If no ransom was paid there is no cause to shoot her, and no cause makes the shooting an accident.

I sure wish these anti-US types would get their stories straight.

Further, if no ransom was paid, one would think the Italians would have come right out said so. Instead, they have put the world in a holding pattern while they check:

The parliamentary committee controlling secret services and security services "has not yet received answers" by the government on the possible payment of a ransom for the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena, stated Enzo Bianco, committee president, at the microphones of "Radio anch'io". "The fact that Italy could have paid a ransom is a very delicate topic, talked and written about by media, but we are not sure that this really happened. Certainly in Italy the choice not to pay ransoms was a winning choice against the phenomenon of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion, particularly serious during the 70ies, but Baghdad is a completely different reality, Italy is united in undertaking any possible step to free possible hostages".

Posted by bubba138 at March 8, 2005 03:59 PM