Ransom

I may be mistaken but there seems something not quite right about the kidnap and release of Sahil Saeed, the 5 year old British boy taken from his grandmother’s house in Pakistan and found yesterday. Various details make it seem not quite straighforward.

And on news of his release suddenly up pops the Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, with a statement designed to show that if anything good had happened he was behind it.

Despite the deep worry of his parents and the outrage of a kidnap, it would be a very bad thing if any ransom had been paid. I don’t mean just by the British Government – it would be quite easy to get a third party to pay a ransom and reimburse them quietly. It would be a bad thing because it would teach other potential kidnappers everywhere that it was a trade worth carrying on.

In addition there remains in captivity in Somalia the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler, for whom we have not paid a ransom. Over and above the wrongness of rewarding crime, there would be something deeply shocking if ransom were paid for one and not the other, for whatever reason, as we near an election.