Daily Star - Estonia denies paying a ransom for cyclists, September 28, 2011

By Patrick Galey

The Daily Star

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BEIRUT: Estonia’s Foreign Ministry denied Tuesday that Tallinn had paid a ransom for the release of seven Estonian nationals kidnapped in Lebanon and held for more than 100 days. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it had not provided any money to kidnappers during the operation to liberate the captives, following Interior Minister Marwan Charbel’s comments last week suggesting that payment was involved. “We have nothing to add to the fact that the government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,” a spokesperson for Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told The Daily Star by telephone. “We said that the Estonians were released after of the result of a joint operation [with Lebanese security forces].” When pressed if the ministry could confirm that the Estonian government had not provided a ransom, the spokesperson responded: “Yes.” Last week Lebanese police shot and killed what it said were two key suspects in its investigation into the abduction, a development that prompted Charbel to disclose that a ransom was involved in the seven men’s July release. He warned that other criminal groups could be encouraged to abduct foreigners in the Bekaa Valley for financial gain. “At long last, Lebanon got confirmation that a ransom was indeed paid [in the kidnapping case] which has stirred up a craving for kidnap-for-ransom,” the minister told The Daily Star. Charbel added in a statement that the two men killed in the police raid had been plotting to kidnap other foreigners, and that the deceased were responsible for the April killing of Internal Security Forces Officer Rashed Sabri, in the Bekaa town of Majdal Anjar, who was part of a patrol tasked with hunting the Estonian’s captors. The seven cyclists were snatched at gunpoint from the outskirts of the town of Zahle as night fell on March 23, 2011. Security forces made several arrests in the wake of the kidnapping but the Estonians were not located until they turned up at the French Embassy in Beirut 113 days later. The previously unheard of Haraket Al-Nahda Wal-Islah (Movement for Renewal and Reform) claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and reportedly asked for an unspecified ransom during the seven’s detention. The publication Intelligence Online, citing Lebanese security sources, alleged that $5 million had been paid during release negotiations. Tallinn has repeatedly rebuffed the notion that a ransom was involved in securing the men’s release, although the details of the rescue remain a mystery.