Imtiaz Sooliman – Sooliman on captured photojournalist Shiraaz Mohamed

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.