Somalia kidnap row

Daud Abdi Daud, the General Secretary of the Somali Journalists Rights Agency (SOJRA), defends the report earlier this week of a possible escape attempt by kidnap victims Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan. The report was quickly dismissed by the Paris-based Reporters without borders,

"I think [Reporters without borders] mean somebody in France can be more reliable than somebody who could hear the sounds of the bullets fired at the two journalists at that particular day. If we reported about what we witnessed, will it mean that we are connected to the kidnappers, or a person who is in a luxury hotel in Paris is more reliable than us?" [said Daud Abdi Daud] link

Meanwhile, Leonard Vincent, the Africa desk chief at Reporters Without Borders, said the "middlemen" involved in the negotiations for the release of the two journalists are getting "angry" at the Canadian authorities refusal to pay ransom,

“Obviously, there’s some kind of obstruction on the fact that Canadians are sitting on the principle that they don’t pay for terrorism, which is something that is crazy because somebody will have to pay… There has to be a clan agreement. There has to be a money agreement. There has to be money delivery and then there has to be a scenario of getting out, who does it, who gets the credit, who films it,” he said. link