Imtiaz Sooliman – Al Qaeda contacts Gift of the Givers regarding Korkie

Alicia? Now, doctor, you had contact with the

Al Qaeda militants yesterday via SMS. Has your

contact in Yemen managed to talk to the

kidnappers?

Yes.

We allowed a cooling off period on Saturday

after we were granted the extension of time

for Pierre, after we we had a stay

in execution,

and I deliberately moved him away from the

area to Sana for that cooling off period.

We knew they will contact us after the

deputy minister leaves, because on Saturday they told

us, your government is coming to Yemen to

talk. And when they said that, we knew

we're gonna get a response, and indeed we

did get that response.

Late yesterday afternoon,

they sent us a text message.

They said,

in our opinion,

your government is not interested in discussing the

release of clear porphyry.

So we asked, what makes you say that?

They said, your government didn't contact us, they

didn't negotiate with us.

And, we're sure they didn't they didn't talk

about ransom. How much ransom money did they

bring?

So we asked him, what gave you the

idea

that our government is not interested in pure

coking? What gives you the idea that they

want to negotiate with you? And what gives

you the idea that they want to pay

a ransom?

They said in the Yemeni media, there was

a report last week to say your deputy

minister is coming to negotiate with us, and

he wants to negotiate around the ransom.

We said, but that's not true. We've told

you guys from the 7th January, every single

day, right up to today, that the South

African government and governments in general don't negotiate

with kidnappers and they don't pay ransom.

They said that's true. All the governments say

that, but they say that in the media.

Under the media and under the table, they

talk to us and they give us money.

So how much money is your government giving

us? We said our government is giving you

no money and they're not talking to you.

And thereafter,

they sent us a picture of a bomb

belt as with a wire fuse attached to

it.

Now, doctor, in terms of the relationship between

the gift of the givers and the government,

how is that so far?

The government it's the relationship is is well,

there's no problem with the relationship. It's just

different modalities in working. The government has a

policy. It can't talk to the, kidnappers,

and it can't pay a ransom.

We don't have an issue talking to the

kidnappers because if somebody doesn't talk to them,

they will kill pure Corky.

Few years ago, there were 3 Russian nurses

in captivity.

Nobody spoke to them. They executed the nurses.

The government even met Anas. They met my

representative.

They had a long discussion with him the

whole day on Sunday. And ambassador

ambassador has been in contact with us from

May last year. I met Ibrahim Ibrahim before

he left for the trip. So we are

in constant communication,

but our modalities of working are different. They're

governed by international law and by the politics.

We follow our own system because we are

an NGO.

Alright, doctor. And with that said, what is

your way going forward from this point on?

We're waiting. You know, we're still having that

cooling period. Even after that bomb picture was

sent to us, we're still keeping the lines

of communication open. We know they will contact

us soon because that's the approach. One minute

they're hard, the next minute they're scary, the

next minute they're soft. So we will continue

with that with that kind of system with

them. We may meet them soon. I'm not

in a hurry

because the moment we meet them, the first

question they're gonna ask is where's the money?

Absolutely. And the moment you don't have the

money, they become sulky,

agitated, and angry, and they may just threaten

to cut the 3 week deadline to 1

week. And I don't want that to happen.

So we'd rather stay away from there for

now and just talk telephonically.

And doctor, speaking of money, please clarify because

a lot of people seem to think that

Gift of the Givers is negotiating

or trying to make awareness of the funds

to be raised themselves when it is actually

the Kortky family. Please clarify that for us.

We don't raise money for ransom.

Our only

place in this issue is that we are

the negotiators,

we are the facilitators.

The funds are collected by the Corky family

themselves and by their friends and, you know,

well wishers. We're not involved at all in

the fundraising

for the for for ransom for Korki family.

Thank you so much, doctor MTS. As always,

we highly appreciate your input, Raichu, on AM

News.

And, of course, that was doctor,

MTS Soleiman, the CEO and founder of NGO

gift of the givers.