Quantcast
Channel: Idarat Maritime
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

British Government Plans to Outlaw Ransom Payments

0
0

On the 24th November 2014 The Guardian reported that, “Theresa May will amend law to close terror ransom loophole“. This report said that in the light of a review of the financing of terrorist organisations like ISIS that the UK Terrorism Act 2000, needs amending to ‘explicitly ban UK insurance and reinsurance firms from reimbursing payments – even when they have reasonable cause to suspect that a payment could have been made to meet a terrorism demand.”

This is likely to again focus attention on the payment of ransoms to pirates, because there exists the possibility that in some cases that terrorist groups in West Africa and Somalia could benefit from ransom payments. This has been a grey area, but the British Government has so far chosen to treat pirate ransoms as acceptable insured risks, as I explain in The New Pirates.

The British shipping industry has always firmly opposed any restrictions on the payment of criminal ransoms, Richard Neylon, of Holman Fenwick Willan, writing in Lloyd’s List (1st Nov. 2011) said that if such a ban on ransoms were in place then the lives of seamen would be put at risk and ships and their cargoes would be lost.

Colin Freeman, a former hostage and author of “Kidnapped” (2011), writing in The Daily Telegraph said of British Government attempts to ban ransom payments, “Sadly, having spent time as as hostage myself, I am not sure it is as quite as simple as that. While researching my book on the subject, I spoke to a number of people involved in hostage negotiations. The reality is that where people’s lives are at stake, there are no really hard and fast rules, and probably never will be.”

It may well be that the British Government, pressed as it is to oppose ISIS, and lacking the tools to intervene effectively has turned to a policy which plays well in the press, but which could too easily have unforeseen and unfortunate side effects in other areas, notably the payment of ransoms to criminal gangs who seize ships at sea.

(originally posted in www.newpirates.info – http://wp.me/p4ZQr5-1E)


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images