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March 24th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“I didn’t know he’d died until about two weeks from my capture, I just
assumed he was alive,” she said. “I feel extremely sad. But you
have just got to pick up the pieces and move on.”
A smile then lit her face as she spoke of her only child, Oliver, 25, who
found himself in the extraordinary position of leading the negotiations for
his mother’s release. “I don’t know he secured my release, but he did,
and I am very happy.”
Of course, for all the brave face that Mrs Tebbutt presented in public, I can
only guess at what private trauma she is now dealing with. This weekend she
returned to Britain, where her empty home in the Hertfordshire town of
Bishop’s Stortford will pose the fresh challenge of life not just as an
ex-hostage, but as a widow.
I have, however, had an insight – albeit a mercifully brief one – into the
kind of ordeal she has been through, having languished as a hostage in
Somalia myself in 2008.
On assignment to report on what was then a nascent piracy problem, my
photographer and I were kidnapped by the very men we’d been sent to write
about, and spirited off to a remote mountain range, where we lived,
Stone-Age style, in caves. During our time in captivity we endured
occasional death threats and a terrifying gunfight when a rival gang tried
to “steal” us, but six weeks later we were released unharmed,
making it a comparatively short stay.
Indeed, having interviewed a number of other kidnap victims since, I have
found myself something of a junior member of the ex-hostages’ club. Peter
Moore, the IT consultant who spent two years kidnapped in Iraq, asked
laughingly: “Six weeks? Is that all?”
Mrs Tebbutt has not yet disclosed any real detail about her kidnapping, beyond
saying that she herself was not mistreated. But based on my own experience.
I can make some informed guesses as to what it would have been like.
Food is likely to have been goat meat, rice or pasta; monotonous by day two,
never mind day 200, but actually rudely healthy; I myself lost a stone in
flab on the pirate plan diet. It is, though, surprising how quick one’s
needs shrink; within five days, all I cared about was getting a cup of sweet
Somali tea and a cigarette every few hours. The hardest part, though, is
passing the time which, unlike a jail sentence, has no fixed end date to
focus on. I had neither books nor newspapers, but I did at least have a
fellow hostage to talk to, something that most kidnap psychologists say is
essential for fending off those darker moments.
Other aspects of Mrs Tebbutt’s ordeal, I cannot begin to empathise with, in
particular her bereavement. Others in her situation might have been tempted
to take their own lives, as did some British soldiers when stationed here
after the Second World War, driven mad by isolation in Somalia’s uniquely
harsh and barren landscape.
So how exactly did her son secure her release? In all likelihood, while he may
have played a key role, possibly talking to the kidnappers by phone, he will
have been closely advised by one of the private security firms that also
deals with commercial piracy cases.
Even so, though, with his own mother’s life on the line, it cannot have been
easy taking part in a negotiation with such high stakes. And there would
also be the knowledge that once a deal was struck, it would line the pockets
of the very people who killed his father.
Where the ransom money came from remains unclear. Some reports have talked of
family friends chipping in, raising the prospect of donations from wealthy
authors at Faber and Faber, or whip-rounds in the Lakeland town of
Ulverston, where Mrs Tebbutt’s mother, Gladys, and five siblings still live.
Some within the private security world, though, believe it may have been
paid by an insurance company.
“It has the hallmarks of a well-run corporate operation” said one
negotiator. “No videos released by the pirates during her captivity, no
uncontrolled publicity and so on.”
Last night, Somali journalists working for The Sunday Telegraph provided more
detailed accounts of Mrs Tebbutt’s time in captivity, relayed to them by
people close to her abductors. According to these accounts, which cannot be
verified, when first taken hostage Mrs Tebbutt repeatedly argued with her
kidnappers and demanded to know why they were holding her. She was also
allegedly threatened during some telephone calls home: a tactic my own
abductors used too.
“She acted as if she had no worries, but when communications were coming
from London, she was made to feel intimidated,” said one source. “This
was to try to make her cry while speaking to relatives.”
They also claimed her guards became increasingly nervous after a US special
forces raid in late January that freed two Danish and American hostages, in
which nine kidnappers died. For a time she was moved almost every 24 hours,
sometimes sleeping in a car or in bushland. Fearing that spies on the ground
would give their location away, the gang also reportedly split into three
different groups, all claiming to be holding Mrs Tebbutt, and refusing to
let even their own ranks carry mobile phones when guarding her. “They
also had a group of pirates checking people passing through the area,”
said the source. “Any suspected spies were told to leave or threatened
with death.”
Whether Somalia’s home-grown al-Qaeda franchise, al Shabaab, had a hand in the
abduction is a moot point. While the group itself denies involvement, many
believe it was a militia allied to them that launched the original kidnap
operation, in return for providing al Shabaab with a cut of any ransom
money. That militia is then said to have sold Mrs Tebbutt onto a pirate
group for $300,000 shortly after, knowing the pirates could negotiate a
considerably higher ransom.
Then again, al Shabaab was never likely to claim responsibility; while British
government policy does not forbid the payment of ransoms to criminal gangs
like pirates, it does forbid them to terrorist groups.
Yet quite aside from concerns over whom such cash ends up with, there is
increasing official unease at the number of British firms involved in the
ransom-paying business. From City insurance and shipping law firms through
to the private security outfits which deliver the cash, the operation is
dominated by Britons from start to finish.
Take, for example, the Nairobi-based security company Salama Fikira, which is
said to deliver some 75 per cent of all pirate ransom drops, including last
week’s one for Mrs Tebbutt. Its managing director is Rob Andrew, a former
SAS officer, who was previously regional counter-terrorism adviser with the
British Embassy in Nairobi.
Such firms argue that without their expertise, hostages would simply languish
for far longer, and possibly end up dead. Yet at last month’s international
summit on Somalia in London, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, issued a
call to stop ransom payments “because in the end they only ensure that
crime pays”.
The US feels the same way, and already, British lawyers involved in pirate
ransom negotiations claim their work is being made more difficult.
“Until recently, I could go to a British bank like RBS or Barclays and
ask them to hold money for me for a ransom delivery,” complained one. “Now
they won’t do it for ‘reputational reasons’.”
Such concerns are now thankfully in the past for Mrs Tebbut as she recovers,
most likely with help from psychologists trained in dealing with hostage
cases. A sympathetic ear is also on offer from Paul and Rachel Chandler, who
told me last week that they thought she stood a good chance of putting her
ordeal behind her, as they have done.
“I would say there is a 100 per cent chance of her getting back to normal,”
said Mr Chandler, whose elderly father died while he was in captivity. “She
has suffered a bereavement of a different level to mine, as my father was 99
anyway. But as far as having been a hostage itself goes, yes, you can get
over it and put it down to experience.”
He pointed out, though, that some 250 sailors are still held prisoner in
Somalia – including fellow yachters Bruno Pelizzari and Debbie Calitz, from
South Africa, who were hijacked 18 months ago.
“We were overjoyed when we heard of Judith’s release,” he said. “But
there are still lots out there who aren’t getting help.”
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