A wicked crime
Kidnap is an outstandingly wicked crime, a living murder that brings terror to its victims and anguish to their families. Unless the ransom is paid, the kidnappers will kill their captive.
Worse, it often happens that even when money is handed over, the unfortunate prisoner is murdered, may even indeed have been slain within hours of being seized.
The story of five-year-old Sahil Saeed is a rare bright spot in this heartless and widespread criminal business. Not only was the boy released unharmed in Pakistan and reunited with his father on Thursday but better still, some at least of those suspected of being part of the ruthless gang have been arrested in Spain, to where they were shadowed by police after they picked up the ransom money in a Paris street. Further arrests are expected. If found guilty, no punishment that these heartless individuals will receive will ever compensate for the agony of fear through which they put young Saeed’s family.
There must, however, be an uncomfortable reflection about this particular crime. Saeed and his family are British. When he was taken at gunpoint during a holiday with relatives in Pakistan, the UK government and media immediately began to pressure the authorities in Islamabad to crack the case and recover the boy. British, French and Spanish police forces were involved along with their Pakistani counterparts, as what appears to have been a highly sophisticated, technology-based operation was mounted to trap the kidnappers. Tragically in many countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, seizing people and holding them for ransom is all too common. However, because the victims are normally locals, nothing like the same level of police resources used to recover little Saeed, is employed to free them and bring the criminals to justice.
Nor is kidnapping simply for ransoms. In the wake of the Taleban’s overthrow, some of the victors seized anyone, especially non-Afghans who might remotely resemble an Al-Qaeda terrorist and sold them to the Americans. This explains why some entirely innocent individuals ended up languishing for years in Guantanamo Bay. In Bagram airbase outside Kabul, the Americans often discovered that the “terrorists” they had bought were simply victims of a personal feud. This dubious bounty hunting shares with normal kidnapping the reality that as long as people are prepared to pay, the criminals will continue to grab their prey. Surely few families will risk toughing it out and refusing to hand over a ransom, if they can raise it. They know that every once in a while kidnappers need to murder an unredeemed captive to prove to future families the danger of refusing to comply with the criminals’ demands.
There is, however, far less excuse for Western powers buying captives from gangs who have seized them, often as a purely speculative venture. This odious exercise in Afghanistan actually inflated the market. Not only did the price demanded for Al-Qaeda “suspects” rocket but so too did the number of often entirely blameless people seized by gangs for future sale to credulous US intelligence people.
