6 Million US Dollars for Aubenas

For freeing of the French journalists Florence Aubenas and her guide from the Iraqi captivity, 6 million US dollars were paid, a French journalist states. He has also found out that the French secret services know the names of the kidnappers of the French journalists. They know all there is to know about them: mobile phone numbers, locations, pictures.

Shocking news in an interview from the monthly Afrique Magazine. Their holder is a French journalist, Roger Auque, who was himself and hostage in Lebanon. He agreed to be the interviewee of the issue for August and September.

RANSOM According to Auque, for the freeing of Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun, 6 million US dollars were paid, which contradicts the French authorities that said no money have been paid for the freeing of the two after 157 days of captivity.

THE KIDNAPPERS’ STRATEGY "The kidnappers never ask for money from the beginning", Auque emphasizes. "They prefer saying they form a political or religious group. Then, they suggest they need money for their big costs and that they would need some support. Therefore, a sum of money is proposed", the French journalist says in the interview for Afrique Magazine, taken over by AFP.

PAST EXAMPLES He also states that, for the freeing of some other two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, from Iraq, "money were involved, less than" in the case of Aubenas.

Roger also knows the sum of money for his freeing from Lebanon: two million US dollars, "a great sum for those times", in his opinion.

IDENTIFIED The journalist says that, "in the cases of Georges Malbrunot, Christian Chesnot and Aubenas", the French secret services "identified the kidnappers and their location". Moreover, he says that "in the basements from Paris of the GDES (General Direction for the External Security) the kidnappers’ mobile phone numbers and pictures and a map of Iraq are posted on the walls." The information of this interview could become pretty interesting for the Romanians as well. They have been assaulted by the information regarding the joint captivity of the Romanian hostages (Marie-Jeanne Ion, Sorin Miscoci, Ovidiu Ohanesian, and their Iraqi-American guide, Mohamed Munaf) and of the French journalist and her Iraqi guide. The information has later been infirmed by Aubenas, who, together with her guide, behaved strangely and, after the freeing, only talked about the things that involved them two. However, following all the statements - from Aubenas, Hussein or the Romanians - a lot of common elements came to surface and they are yet to be clarified. If the information of Roger Auque and of the one about the Romanian-French-Iraqi captivity is true, the data regarding the kidnappers can help the investigation involving the Romanian journalists as well. I asked Marie-Jeanne Ion’s opinion about Auque’s statements.

"I find it quite difficult to comment since they are not from an official source", she stated. "If all these data were really in the hands of the French authorities, then we should have known about them. But, I repeat, as long as these data didn’t come from Romanian or French official sources, there is no meaning in me commenting. If they are real, the kidnappers can be caught, right? This would certainly bring a smile to our faces", Marie-Jeanne Ion added.

NEGOTIATIONS Asked about the duration of the negotiations, Roger Auque states that "the rule of acute "spionitis" governs the Middle East. The Arabians see spies everywhere (…). They are very skeptical and take enormous security measures". In 1987, the Hezbollah militia has retained Roger Auque in Lebanon for almost one year. After being freed, he became a "war correspondent", being the producer of many feature reports in Baghdad. Recently, he published a book entitled "Hostages. From Beirut to Baghdad/ the Journal of a War Correspondent".