US likely to end policy against family members paying ransoms for hostages
Following accidental killing of captives, the White House is likely to recommend that the government no longer blocks family payments
PUBLISHED : Monday, 27 April, 2015, 11:15pm
UPDATED : Monday, 27 April, 2015, 11:15pm
Tribune News Service in Washington
Warren Weinstein
James Foley
A White House review of hostage policy is likely to recommend that the federal government no longer block the paying of ransoms by family members seeking release of captives, and not prosecute them for doing so, a US official said.
The family of Warren Weinstein, an American aid worker who was taken hostage in 2012 and killed accidentally in a US drone strike in January, reportedly paid a ransom in violation of the policy, hoping that it would lead to his release.
Weinstein and an Italian man were killed in a strike targeting a compound thought to be frequented by al-Qaeda militants, US President Barack Obama announced last week in a rare public admission of a grave targeting error by a US drone attack. Obama has embraced the drone strikes as his preferred method of conducting counterterrorism operations overseas, but the hostage deaths brought renewed scrutiny to his choice.
The White House said after confirming the death of the men that it was considering changing its approach to overseas hostage rescues. The proposed change to the ransom policy, if approved by Obama, would loosen US protocol, which forbids such payments to obtain hostages' release.
The official said on Sunday the prohibition on ransom payments funded by the US government would be unaffected by the proposal, which was first reported by ABC News.
A National Counterterrorism Centre advisory group, tasked by the White House, was expected to recommend the radical shift in US hostage policy, according to the ABC report.
The centre interviewed the families of hostages, including the parents of journalist James Foley, who was killed by Islamic State fighters.
The proposal to permit family-paid ransoms "could make sense", US Representative John Delaney, whose congressional district included Weinstein's hometown of Rockville, Maryland, said on ABC's This Week.
Richard Clarke, a former US counterterrorism official, argued that lifting the blanket ban on ransom payments would encourage the taking of additional hostages.
"If you say that we'll pay them, there'll be many more hostages," he said on This Week.
The White House review, announced in November, was undertaken in response to complaints from captives' family members, who said they are often left in the dark about government efforts to free hostages.
Delaney called for the creation of a "hostage czar", an official for coordinating efforts to locate hostages among agencies and departments involved in rescue efforts.
"We don't do as effective a job as we could in finding these hostages," he said.
Foley's mother, Diane, has said that White House officials repeatedly told her family it was illegal to try to raise a ransom to free her son and warned that her family could face prosecution for doing so.
The Obama administration denied making any such threats.
"There will be absolutely zero chance of any family member of an American held hostage overseas ever facing jail themselves, or even the threat of prosecution, for trying to free their loved ones," a senior official had told ABC News.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
