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Pirates holding Britons torn between ransom, exchange

Pirates holding a British couple hostage in Somalia are split on whether to demand a ransom or prisoner exchange to free them, one of their captors said on Saturday, as Britain insisted it would not pay for their release.

Paul and Rachel Chandler, who are aged 59 and 55, were sailing near the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean on their yacht the Lynn Rival when pirates seized them on Oct. 23.

Britain’s Foreign Office, which earlier confirmed a US$7 million demand, on Saturday ruled out the payment of a ransom.

“We will not make substantive concessions to hostage-takers and that includes the payment of ransom,” it said in a statement.

One of the pirates, Abdi Yare, said the kidnappers were torn between demanding money for the couple or trading them for the release of seven pirates detained by foreign naval forces after an attack on a French fishing boat on Tuesday.

“You know there are seven pirates who were arrested by the foreign forces after the attack, some of us are insisting to exchange the two with their friends, while others just want to get ransom,” Yare said.

The pirates had moved the couple, earlier held on a Singapore-flagged container ship off the coast, to a location near the pirate lair of Harardhere on the central coast of Somalia, he said.

“They were taken to a village outside Harardhere and they are fine so far,” he said by telephone.

A local elder, Abdulahi Mohamed, also said by phone that the couple had been taken outside Harardhere, but he said he did not know their exact whereabouts.

The Chandlers were sailing across the Indian Ocean from the Seychelles to Tanzania when they were captured and their 12m yacht was later found empty by Britain’s Royal Navy.

The couple have spoken to British broadcaster ITV News by telephone from Somalia.

An anxious-sounding Rachel Chandler said on Friday that they were “safe” and “healthy” and that their kidnappers were “very hospitable people.”

The BBC played a tape on Friday of a man it identified as a spokesman for the pirates who said: “If they do not harm us, we will not harm them. We only need a little amount of US$7 million.”
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