Why Canada shouldn’t pay ransoms for hostages
‘I OWE MY LIFE TO A RANSOM. BUT SHOULD OUR GOVERNMENT PAY RANSOMS? NO, I DON’T THINK SO.’
There is an audio file stored on my mom’s computer, labelled “The Bad Call.” It’s a recording of a two-minute call between her and me on Sept. 9, 2009. I had, at that point, been a hostage in Somalia for over a year. My captors — a radicalized criminal group — were pointing guns at my head. I had shackles around my legs and had endured almost daily abuse. It was not uncommon for them to beat me or otherwise push me to the brink of desperation and then immediately dial my mother’s cellphone number. Why? Because they wanted a ransom. With the brutal murder of Canadian hostage John Ridsdel in the Philippines this week by terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, the ransom debate is again playing out. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed the Canadian government’s long-standing ban on paying ransoms for hostages: “Paying ransom for Canadians would endanger the lives of every single one of the millions of Canadians who live, work and travel around the globe every single year,” he said.
I owe my life to a ransom, one paid not by the government, but by private donations made by many caring people, to whom I will forever be grateful. I am not comfortable with the fact that those who abducted me profited from it. I wonder, what did they spend it on? And I can’t bear to imagine where the money has gone.
My fate could easily have been the same as Ridsdel’s. In hostage situations, the pressure on both sides — at home and in captivity — is immense. Kidnappers know this. They understand how to manipulate a family and its home government by making their captives suffer and by sharing that suffering in phone calls, photos or videos. But for the government to pay a ransom, as Trudeau pointed out, is to lose a larger battle.
The Harper government told my family from the start it couldn’t, and wouldn’t, negotiate a ransom deal with my captors. But it did say many times that it had a great track record of bringing hostages home safely, without payment.
BUT ULTIMATELY, THE GOVERNMENT COULD NOT FREE ME. ONLY MONEY WOULD GET ME OUT.
My mother, Lorinda Stewart, put her faith in this. She was working a low-wage job at a bakery when I was abducted, and ended up acting as the primary negotiator for me, recording calls from the kidnappers’ communication leader, a man I knew as Adam. His calls came in almost daily. The RCMP sent trained negotiators to live with her, day and night. They helped her through many months of agony and helplessness. She was told there were intelligence agents working to secure my release.
But ultimately, the government could not free me. Only money would get me out. Even the government appeared to recognize its limitations. About 10 months after I had been kidnapped, my mother was told to “look at other options.”
I had been taken hostage alongside an Australian photojournalist, Nigel Brennan, and after much debate, our families hired a private security company, AKE, based in London, to help orchestrate a strategy for release. AKE’s chief officer estimated it would take $1 million and 60 days to get us out of Somalia. Astonishingly, his prediction was pretty accurate.
In Canada, my mother began fundraising for a ransom. But she did so quietly and always with a high degree of worry.
She was in a painful double bind: it is illegal in Canada to raise money for a ransom or to pay a ransom. Even as the RCMP packed up and left her to navigate on her own, they reminded her she could spend up to 10 years in prison for taking this new path.
On “the bad call,” my mom talks over my sobs.
“We’ve been selling everything,” she says. “We’ve been begging people every day, Amanda. I write letters and I make phone calls to big people to help us. It is illegal in Canada to raise a ransom, Amanda. I could go to jail, so I’m trying to do it so that the government doesn’t know because if I go to jail I can’t help you … I’m trying … we are trying, Amanda, we have offered everything that we have.”
The guilt I felt was enormous. I knew the government wouldn’t pay. And I knew my family couldn’t afford to pay. I was in my mid20s and went rather naively to Somalia to chase a story. I never could have imagined the extent of the consequences.
By late 2009, our families managed the seemingly impossible. Months of fundraisers and generous contributors allowed us to make a $600,000 ransom offer and pay AKE’s costs, another $600,000. Adam accepted. We were released on Nov. 26, 2009, 460 days after we had been taken. My mother has faced no legal consequence for her efforts on my behalf.
It was only afterward, while recuperating in hospital in Kenya, that I learned all the ways in which my freedom came about. I was debriefed for days. I met government representatives who had worked on my case since the day I’d been taken, kind and compassionate people who had gone to great lengths to do everything they could, within the confines of the law, to bring me home. There were things done for me that I cannot disclose. What I can say is that I was never abandoned.
In 2015, Ali Omar Ader, the man I knew as “Adam,” was lured to Canada and arrested in a remarkable undercover RCMP investigation. He is now in Ottawa awaiting trial for hostage taking.
It is heartbreaking when a hostage is not as lucky as I was. I survived and have gone on to build a life for myself. Ridsdel will never be able to return to Calgary or see his family.
Should our government pay ransoms? No, I don’t think so. It would make the world an even more dangerous place for Canadians working and travelling abroad, increasing the chance they could be targeted for kidnapping.
But there are policies that could be changed to help families of hostages. In the United States, President Barack Obama recently made it legal for families to fundraise for ransoms; Canada would do well to follow suit. While the government shouldn’t be in the ransom business, it’s cruel to forbid a family member from doing so. There should be more government support for families’ psychological care, something my mom feels would have helped enormously.
As we mourn the terrible outcome of Ridsdel’s hostage-taking, we need to work together — families and government — to reduce the risks for Canadians abroad and stamp out terror forever. That is how we honour his memory.
IT IS ILLEGAL IN CANADA TO RAISE A RANSOM. I COULD GO TO JAIL.