The
plans to free two Western hostages were well underway when they were
killed during a failed rescue bid in Nigeria, a spokesman for the
kidnappers told the Mauritanian news agency ANI.
According to AFP, the spokesman
for a splinter group of Boko Haram claimed his group was negotiating
the release of the British and Italian hostages and had reached an
agreement with their families that excluded government involvement.
However, a senior government source in
London on Sunday denied there was any such plan, saying the rescue
operation had been the best option.
“The kidnappers had established contact
with the family of the British hostage and had begun negotiations asking
for a five million euro ($6.5 million) ransom and the freedom of
certain prisoners,” the spokesman said Saturday.
The online news agency ANI, in December
released a video in which gunmen threatened to kill one of the hostages
if their demands were not met.
The spokesman added that the family of
the Italian hostage had entered the negotiations in which both families
had been provided with evidence that the hostages were still alive.
He said the kidnappers had “proved their
flexibility: They accepted to add the Italian to the agreement without
supplementary demands and gave up their demand that detained Islamists
in the region be freed”.
He said the parties had finally agreed on a ransom of 1.2 million euros, and no government intervention.
“A tiny part of this ransom had already been paid a few days earlier and the rest was to come,” he added.
Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara, 48,
and his British colleague Chris McManus, 28, were killed during the
failed rescue bid authorised by British Prime Minister David Cameron on
Thursday.
PUNCH NEWSPAPER
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