Kidnappers got $19m ransom
2008-05-18 12:11
Algiers - Families of Algerian kidnap
victims paid nearly $19m in ransom in 2007 to abductors
who included Islamist rebels and criminal gangs, a government
minister said in remarks published on Saturday.
The government of the north African OPEC member state rarely
releases regular statistical information on crime.
Data on kidnapping - a lucrative crime common in the
politically troubled Kabylie region east of Algiers - is seen as
particularly sensitive because officials do not want to
encourage copy-cat abductions.
Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, in remarks
quoted by government daily El Moudjahid, said abductors
kidnapped 375 people in Algeria last year, with 115 of those
cases related to what he called terrorism.
He gave no
comparative figures.
Moudjahid quoted him as saying that, "115 kidnapping cases
with links to terrorism were reported in 2007, when amounts
reaching six billion dinars ($93m) were demanded (as
ransom)".
A further 260 abduction cases were blamed on criminal
"delinquents".
"Families of the victims paid (a total of) 1.2 billion
dinars ($18.7m)," he said.
Traffickers in human organs
Algerian newspapers have in recent years said kidnapping is
a growing phenomenon. Cases often involve the families of
wealthy building contractors.
Investigations by security services also showed that some
abductions were aimed at smuggling human organs, Zerhouni said.
"Not long ago a man was arrested near the Moroccan borders
while preparing to kidnap a two-year old child.
After the
arrest, he confessed to having sold children to a hospital in
Oujda, Morocco," Zerhouni said, referring to a man who belonged
to a gang of traffickers in human organs.
Algeria plans to expand its police force to 200 000 by 2009
from 140 000 now to cope with common crime, which has flourished
as the country emerges from years of political bloodshed.