OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Paris | Friday
THE son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has admitted that Tripoli paid $6m to Muslim rebels on the Philippine island of Jolo to secure the release of South Africans Callie and Monique Strydom and eight European hostages in late August.
Seif al-Islam, who was a key figure in the release of Western hostages from their four-month ordeal, told Figaro Magazine that reports that his charity had earmarked up to $25m for development projects in the southern Philippines in exchange for the hostage release were not correct.
Tripoli has until now denied press reports that it had paid huge ransoms for the hostages, with Western officials hinting that Libyan aid projects were no more than ransom money in disguise.
“The total amount of the budget for development aid, including loans and credits, is not more than $6m,” Seif al-Islam said.
Asked if his charity had, as some media reported, paid $1m per freed hostage, he said: “Some sums were paid directly for the hostages, but not in those proportions.
“We haven’t drawn up the financial balance for each hostage, but we understood very quickly that no hostage would leave the rebel camps alive without these dealings.”
Libyan negotiators brokered the release of the hostages in late August and early September from the Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels.
Seif al-Islam said Libya would not help free an American hostage, Jeffrey Schilling, and accused him of being an arms dealer who was doing business with the rebels.
“We know now that Jeffrey Schilling was selling arms to the rebels,” Seif al-Islam said. “Nobody knew this information before and I am revealing it for the first time. He went to the rebel camp several times. He may have converted to Islam but he is first and foremost an arms dealer.”