Piracy

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thought that my Answer was quite helpful. However, I can give the noble Lord an assurance that he will be told, and the House will be informed, when we have made a decision. As regards whether SARs should be used whenever a ransom has been paid, the paying of ransom, as the noble Lord will be aware, is not illegal as such, although we deplore the practice because we do not think it assists. I can also confirm that, as the noble Lord put it, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister does want further work to be looked at in this area to see whether it should be something for which a SAR should automatically be filed if that is the case.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, it has been known for some time that terrorist groups such as AQIM have used kidnap for ransom as a source of income. Why did the Government not mention this in the course of the extended correspondence with the EU Select Committee about piracy off the coast of Somalia?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we made it clear that we do not believe that the money going in ransoms to—if I can put it this way—the ordinary Somali pirates is generally going into terrorists’ hands. What is being gathered by AQIM is coming from other kidnapping operations and, as the noble Lord will be aware, there is a very good chance that that is going into terrorism operations, in which case it would be illegal to pay that ransom.