Hollandes government insists it pays no ransoms and does not exchange prisoners, although in September he acknowledged for the first time that other countries have done so to help us. President Barack Obama last month ordered a review of the U.S. response to citizens being taken hostage abroad after the deaths of several Americans held by Islamic extremists. But the Obama administration said the review will not include changing the policy against ransoms. You have a choice between the policy of Mr. Obama, which appears to be not to negotiate and to see hostages killed, and a position of negotiating without admitting it, Alain Marsaud, a conservative French lawmaker, told the BFM television network. Its true that we negotiate, we pay, and we try to get results …. There isnt a single Frenchman who believes Mr. Lazarevic was freed because Mr. Hollande has nice eyes. Another Frenchman kidnapped in Mali in November 2011 along with Lazarevic, Philippe Verdon, was found dead in July 2013.
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Frenchman Held 3 Years By Al-qaida Freed In Africa | News-journalonline.com
It happens. We have to stop lying to ourselves. The alternative, he said, is to have hostages killed by their kidnappers like the British and Americans held by Islamic extremists. One American soldier held by Taliban fighters, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, was freed in exchange for the release of five Taliban prisoners from the prison in Guantanamo Bay. In the failed rescue Saturday in Yemen, U.S. officials said special forces were trying to free American hostage Luke Somers because al-Qaida had threatened to kill him. They did not realize that he was being held with a South African hostage, Pierre Korkie, who was on the verge of being freed after ransom negotiations with the kidnappers. Yolande Korkie, his wife, was abducted along with her husband and freed earlier.
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