Kidnapping: Syrian Style

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Kidnapping: Syrian Style

Postby RYP » Fri Feb 08, 2013 9:45 pm

Syria kidnappings terror: Find the cash or I will send his fingers

Kidnap is big business in lawless Syria. The father of one victim tells Hala Jaber of the chilling call he received
Hala Jaber Published: 21 October 2012
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A rebel from the Free Syrian Army, which has been accused of kidnappings (Paulo Nunes dos Santos)
THE kidnappers were impatient for their ransom. Several hours had passed since they had seized their hostage, a 31-year-old businessman, but neither his father nor his bride of three months seemed willing to meet their demands. They did not have the money, they said.

The kidnap gang knew how to make them think again.

First they placed a towel round the hostage’s head so that he could not see what was about to be done to him. Then they tied him to a chair, binding his arms by his sides and his feet together until he was helpless.

“Get his parents on the line,” the gang leader ordered.

The father of the hostage — who can be identified only as Joseph — picked up the phone and heard a torrent of abuse.

“Why all this bad language?” he asked.

“Eat shit and bring 50m Syrian pounds [£460,000] or we’ll return your son piece by piece.”

“But where am I going to get you the 50m?” asked Joseph’s father.

“Find it or, as Allah is my witness, I will send you his fingers by morning.”

One of the kidnappers, a bearded man who called himself Abu Jihad (father of jihad), grabbed Joseph’s hand and forced his fingers between the jaws of a powerful pair of pliers.

Slowly, he increased the pressure on the cutting edges until Joseph screamed loudly enough to chill his father’s blood. The line went dead.

Later, Joseph was left in no doubt that although his hand remained intact for now, the threat of amputation was real.

In the bathroom of the single-storey house where he was being held, he saw that the bottom of the head towel had come loose, giving him a glimpse of the floor. There, at his feet, were two fingers that had been severed and left on the tiles, presumably until they could be sent to another stricken family.

At that moment, he knew that there was at least one other hostage in the house, and that his captors were ruthless enough to cut him to pieces.

“I just stepped over the fingers and ignored the whole thing and pretended I hadn’t seen anything,” he said.

Joseph’s ordeal is being repeated many times over as a surge in abductions compounds the anguish of Syria’s conflict.

According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people have been kidnapped since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 19 months ago. The further the violence spreads, the greater the breakdown of security and the more opportunities there are for the gangs.

Some are kidnapped by criminals for ransom, others by rebels for funds to buy guns and ammunition, others by security forces to intimidate opponents or secure the release of their own hostages.

After all the shelling, shooting and bombing, kidnapping has become the possibility more and more families dread when a loved one fails to return home on time.

Joseph had just driven back from having his hair cut when he was attacked. As he parked his 4X4 outside the flat where he was starting married life in an affluent area of Damascus, two men dressed in military fatigues emerged from a black car with tinted windows, introduced themselves as “security” and demanded his car documents.

When he said he did not have them with him, he was told to approach the black car. There, a man he had assumed was the senior security officer gave the order: “Take him.”

An AK-47 was jabbed into his waist and he was forced into the back seat of his car, where he sat with the barrel of the gun pressed against his skin as he was driven away.

The car stopped near the rebel stronghold of al-Midan, in the suburbs. “Take off your spectacles,” Joseph was told. The man at his side pulled his T-shirt over his head and eyes.

Soon afterwards, they arrived at a single-storey house, where Joseph was told to kneel facing the wall with his hands behind his back. The kidnappers handcuffed him tightly, wound a blindfold round his eyes and tied a plastic cuff around his feet. He was made to lie on his side on the floor while the men searched his phone and wallet.

They proceeded to interrogate him about his work, home and how he could afford a fancy car. Then their commander entered the room and Joseph could make out through the thin blindfold that he was wearing robes. He spoke Arabic with a north African accent.

His men told him that Joseph was a Christian. “Then he’s an infidel,” the commander replied, and told them how much to ask for his release. As he left the room, the commander drew a finger across his neck as if to say: “Slit his throat.”

That evening, one of the captors, Abu Farouq, showed him some kindness, bringing bread, chicken and water, and loosening his cuffs. “Your hands have turned blue,” Abu Farouq said, massaging them to restore the circulation.

On the other side of the city, his parents’ house was filled with frantic relatives.

The first call came at 9.02pm. Joseph’s mother was told to stand by for instructions. At 9.07pm came the demand for 50m Syrian pounds; then, an hour later, the threats to cut Joseph and his screams as the pliers’ blades were pressed into his fingers.

“Even if I sell everything I have, I won’t raise that much,” his father said. “The most I may be able to get is 1.5m [about £14,000].” A tirade of curses followed.

The next morning, the kidnappers rang Joseph’s new wife, Sarah. “All my father-in-law can raise is 1.5m,” she said, begging to speak to her husband.

A stream of calls followed from friends offering the cash they kept at home for emergencies — from a few hundred dollars to $2,000 — and cars were dispatched to collect it.

Then came yet another call, to increase the pressure on Sarah. “I’ll be selling all the gold I received as wedding presents and so will my mother-in-law,” she told the gang.

That afternoon, the kidnapper Abu Jihad told Joseph he had bad news: “It seems your parents don’t want to pay — they’re sacrificing you.”

Joseph was tied to the chair with strips of plastic and kicked and beaten by several men. Abu Jihad produced an electric cattle prod and stung him with shocks to his legs and body. Again, the screams were relayed to his family.

“We kept making believe it wasn’t him in order not to break down,” his father said.

By the end of the day, he was able to tell the gang that 1m Syrian pounds (about £9,000) had been amassed.

At 10pm, he was instructed to bring 2m. When he said he could not, the kidnappers settled for 1.5m. At 11pm, a family friend offered to pay in full and sent the cash to the family home in bags.

It was not until three agonising days later, at 6am, that Joseph’s father received his instructions about where to drop the money. Two masked men collected it and he was told to wait at another location where his son would be delivered within the hour.

Eight hours later, he accepted that his son was not coming. At 5pm, a further payment of 500,000 Syrian pounds was demanded as a “gratuity”. They compromised on 300,000.

This time, he insisted Joseph be handed over in a public place in exchange for the cash. His family warned that he could be kidnapped if he went alone.

“I have to go,” he told his brother. “If there’s only a 1% chance for Joseph, I must go.”

He was directed to five rendezvous in turn, all in rebel-held areas. Distracted, he drove through a security checkpoint without stopping and a shot was fired. Further up the road, he was caught in crossfire between the rebels and the army.

Finally, he was ordered to get out of his car and cross a road, where he was greeted by a man standing outside a small cake shop, smoking.

When the kidnappers demanded to know who he was talking to, Joseph’s father knew they were close. His son came on the line.

“Can you see me?” his father asked.

“Wave, Dad. I’m behind you.”

He turned and saw someone pointing a gun at his son. “I have the money,” he said. “Let Joseph come forward.”

The family may never know for sure whether the gang was from the Free Syrian Army. But FSA abductions have come under scrutiny from Human Rights Watch, a leading human rights organisation that has previously exposed atrocities by government forces.

The group has documented widespread abuses by Assad’s security forces, including arbitrary detentions, torture, forced televised confessions, deaths in custody, disappearances and the indiscriminate shelling of neighbourhoods.

Last month it wrote to the Sunni-dominated opposition, condemning the abduction of security forces and supporters of the Alawite-led government, and the torture and execution of soldiers and civilians alike.

“Some of the attacks targeting Shi’ites and Alawites appear to be motivated by sectarianism,” the group said.

For Joseph, the elation of falling into his father’s arms after the last bag of money was handed over earlier this month is tempered by haunting memories of beatings.

For his father, who honked his horn with joy as he brought his son home to an ecstatic welcome from family, friends and neighbours, the anxiety of the final negotiations will stay with him for a long time.

“I was negotiating for the blood of my son,” he said. “I was gripped with fear that they would seriously harm him if I didn’t pay the remaining amount.

“I thought: haven’t I paid the original ransom? I should not argue about a few thousand more.”
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