Imtiaz Sooliman – Sooliman on captured photojournalist Shiraaz Mohamed
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Uh, we've seen that video, the clip a few minutes ago, with
Shiraz making a very earnest appeal for help. How did you get
to this point in the process?
We have been involved for two years, three months now, trying
the different groups, trying speaking to people inside Syria,
outside Syria, and, you know, trying to look at Shiva, trying to
find which group was he was, took him the circumstances, and a whole
lot of it's a long story, but finally, on the 12th of April, we
had some fantastic information, some personal we can't mention
right now, gave us very strategic information. And as a result of
that information, we finally got to the people who eventually gave
us a video on Friday, the 26th of April. I mean that video, which is
shown by you, should have made that appeal that in itself to be
taken out from captivity.
Do we have any idea where exactly he's being held and the conditions
around his captivity right now,
from the information we had previously reliability commission,
and which is the standard case in all captivity cases, you can move
from place to place. We know that he has moved from place to place.
So we don't really know where he is right now. But that is a
standard process. From what we were told that he was well looked
after. There was no problem about him being looked after, but ways
we don't know. And when I say, well, looked after, it depends on
the type of houses or type of location these people stay in
there, good house, the situation will be good. If the underground
tunnel, it will be an underground tunnel. So it varies from time to
time, the places where it stays, where it's taken, the availability
of resources, what is given to eat, all those kind of things, but
overall, it's been well looked after.
MTS. We want to get a sense of where to in the process. Do we go
from here? Have there been any ransom demands? Did you have any
information on that note for us? Now, it's just a first step in the
first step. After two years, three months. There were a lot of other
things that happened, but from next week, they're giving us
video. They probably give
it to the family. You know the family has seen it, and I'm sure
sometimes this week, some more information will come through, and
maybe the demands will come through. Then will Shiraz be able
to communicate with his family and loved ones at all. You've dealt
with a number of cases of these, this kind of nature. And
sometimes, if not always, the kidnapped, the hostage, is allowed
to speak to loved ones at home, if only for proof of life at that.
No, they won't get a chance to speak, because speaking to the
family is the video. You can only speak through the video to the
family and those who are dealing with trouble trying to get him
out, but a direct call to the family that will have happened
in tears. Can you share with us any more information on the
process going forward? What will you as gift of the givers do? What
will be your next initial step? Now,
we've got a lot of processes to go ahead. One is we'll wait for them
for their feedback or what the demands are, but have other
systems in place, which I definitely cannot discuss now,
which will harm the case, but at the appropriate side, we will
mention exactly what we're doing and what steps we've got in place.
There's a lot of things to do now, but the video we're waiting for
the video to be able to do what you're going to do next, right?
What are the usual demands of kidnappers in cases like the same
tiers,
commentation, nothing. It's all about money. It's a pure business,
and it varies from 1.5 million to 2 million to 4 million to 12
million euros of dollars on a type of hostage to country. You know
how important the person is, what the status is related to
government. So the price varies. I don't know from place to place,
which group is holding him, how desperate they have to get that
kind of him or her for that better. So if you never see the
one, it's always about money, but sometimes it's not about money.
It's about exchange of prisoners. It's strategic capture of targets.
And they don't want any money, but they want their friends released
from prison, which, of course, one was in this case, because they
haven't captured something they can get because there's this
country's work on so there's no real government, so there's nobody
negotiate with to take people out of seven, and they can't capture a
South African to negotiate with a Syrian. That's never going to
work, I see. And what are the chances of you negotiating down
the price on Shiraz right now? Sorry, I didn't get a question.
What are the chances of you negotiating down the ransom on
Shiraz right now? Whatever that figure stands, if it does come to
that, yeah, well, we don't pay rental money. No, that's our
standard policy. We don't pay to spend some money. Of course, we
don't stop the families from things to rent some money. But the
family themselves cannot afford whatever it is going to be in the
millions they're going to talk about. It's probably not going to
be 5000 or $10,000 obviously, we know it comes in the millions. So
the family cannot afford that kind of money. Governments want to.
So we're going to be at a stainless and that's why we're
going to find other ways to solve the storm. Alright? MTR Suleiman,
we are out of time. He's the CEO of gift of the givers joining us
on the line from Peter marisberg.