Save The Chandlers

FREED kidnap Britons Paul and Rachel Chandler were seconds from being RECAPTURED by blood-thirsty Somali pirates, The Sun can reveal.

Brave ex-London cabbie Dahir Kadiye, 56 – who negotiated the couple’s release – told how a rebel group in the gang plotted to ambush the 4×4 taking them to safety.

ex-London cabbie who helped Paul and Rachel Chandler escape Somali pirates

The breakaway bandits intended to shoot dead their former comrades and demand a SECOND ransom for Dahir and the Chandlers.

In a gripping exclusive interview, Dahir wept as he recalled his despair as last week’s secret mission teetered on the edge of disaster.
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STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE FAMILY OF PAUL AND RACHEL CHANDLER on November 14 at 1447 hrs

“Yesterday evening, we received the wonderful news that Paul and Rachel Chandler were to be released by the Somali pirates who had held them in captivity since October 23, 2009.

The videos that were shown on television earlier this year indicated that they were coping with the conditions and were in relatively good health. But we cannot yet be certain how the difficulties that they have had to endure in recent months will have affected them physically and emotionally. We would ask that everyone gives them the opportunity to adjust and return to their families and friends in the days to come.

Throughout the protracted discussions with the pirates it has been a difficult task for the family to get across the message that these were two retired people on a sailing trip on a small private yacht and not part of a major commercial enterprise involving tens of millions of pounds of assets.

Thankfully, common sense finally prevailed and a solution was obtained for their release in the last few days. There will be the inevitable questions of how their release was achieved. The family believes it would be irresponsible to discuss any aspect of the release process as this could encourage others to capture private individuals and demand large ransom payments, something that we are sure none of us wants.

The family would like to thank those in the Somali community especially, both locally, and in the UK, who did so much to help secure their release.

At 0300hrs GMT on 14th November Paul and Rachel began their journey away from the pirates by road. At approximately 0900 hrs (GMT), after a reception organised by the local administration, they boarded a light aircraft on the airstrip at Adado, for the first leg of their journey to Nairobi. They landed in Mogadishu and were taken by convoy to meet the Prime Minister of the TFG (Transitional Federal Government), Mohamed Abdullah Farmajo. This was followed by an onward flight, crossing the Kenyan border to safety and freedom, arriving at 1440 hrs, London time, their ordeal having lasted 388 days.

Both Paul and Rachel are in good spirits although very tired and exhausted by their experience.

They will now both have medical checks in Nairobi, following which they will fly back to the UK.

All family members would like to thank all the media who have respected the injunction for their cooperation and restraint throughout the ordeal of Paul and Rachel and would ask that this spirit of understanding continues while they are reunited with family and friends. The Family will not be making any further statements until they have had an opportunity to talk with Paul and Rachel on their return.

Paul and Rachel have asked us to thank all those around the country who have offered support during their ordeal and the professional advisors who have worked around the clock to secure their release.

ITN exclusive: Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates, have used their first full television interview in captivity to congratulate David Cameron on his election victory and to seek the backing of Britain’s new government in securing their freedom.

Paul Chandler, a 60-year-old retired civil engineer, said: “I’d like to say congratulations to David Cameron first. And as new prime minister, we desperately need him to make a definitive public statement of the government’s attitude to us.

“If the government is not prepared to help, then they must say so, because the gangsters’ expectations and hopes have been raised at the thought of a new government and there might be a different approach.”

The retired couple from Tunbridge Wells were enjoying the yachting holiday of a lifetime last October when they were kidnapped by pirates in the Indian Ocean just off the Seychelles, hundreds of miles from Somalia.

They have been held for more than seven months and reveal on Channel 4 News tonight that almost half their time in captivity has been spent away from each other in solitary confinement.

At first the pirate gang demanded a huge ransom for their release, though they have since said they are open to negotiation. It is official British government policy not to pay ransoms to kidnappers.

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By David Jones and Nick Wadhams
Daily Mail
March 20, 2010

Rachel Chandler and her husband are as far from salvation as eve

Rachel Chandler shot. Please call urgently … That was the dramatic and brutally short text-message sent to us by our Somali contact last weekend.

And like every such missive about the British couple held by pirates in the Horn of Africa, it demanded to be checked.

The Daily Mail has the mobile-phone number for the gang’s spokesman, a lugubrious sounding character who calls himself Ali Gedow, and we immediately tried to call it.

But separating fact from fiction in this intractable saga is never easy. For one thing, ‘Ali’ rarely deigns to answer unsolicited calls, and when he does his heavily accented English is rendered incomprehensible by whisky and khat, the pirates’ drug of choice.

For another, one never knows whether to believe his rambling pronouncements, for the pirates have become as adept as Alastair Campbell at manipulating the media, to increase the pressure on those negotiating to free their hapless captives.

And so it was now. After reportedly confirming to a Somali radio station that 56-year-old Mrs Chandler had indeed received gunshot wounds in some unspecified incident, by the time we got through to him last Monday, pirate Ali had changed his story.

Kidnapped: Paul and Rachel Chandler were sailing around the world when their boat was hijacked by Somalian pirates

‘No, it is a mistake  -  another girl was shot, not Rachel Chandler,’ he told the Mail during our longest and most lucid interview since the Kent economist and her husband, Paul, were kidnapped while yachting in the Indian Ocean.

‘Two of our pirates had an argument, and one fired his gun, hitting a Somali girl who was with Rachel in the leg. Rachel was close by at the time but she was not injured. She is quite OK.’

In a bizarre aside, he added that the pirates have given Mrs Chandler a gun with which to ‘protect herself’ from renegade guards.

Why would they risk this when she could use the weapon to shoot her way to freedom? ‘She will never do this,’ he replied with a hollow laugh. ‘There are 100 of us and she is alone in the desert. She knows she would be killed.’

For good measure, Ali added that Mrs Chandler  -  who has appeared dangerously thin and close to breaking point on video appeals sanctioned by the pirates  -  is now much improved in health and spirits.

Her 60-year-old husband, who seems to be bearing up better than his wife, was also faring well, he claimed.

‘We have given them books and a radio. They stay in a comfortable tent and they eat pirate food with us; sometimes we even drive them around to show them the scenery,’ he said, making it sound as though they were on an extended holiday.

‘If they get sick we give them herbal medicines made from leaves. They are not together any longer. We’re keeping them a few miles apart. But they are relaxing with our people.’