Did #Qatar pay the biggest ransom in history?

On 16 December 2015 Qatar's ruling family learned that 28 members of a royal hunting party had been kidnapped in Iraq.  The hostages, who had gone to Iraq to hunt with falcons, included a cousin and uncle of Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who was about to become Qatar's foreign minister. He and Qatar's ambassador to Iraq, Zayed al-Khayareen, then became engaged in a one year and four month campaign to free the hostages. 

There is more than one version of what was done to free the hostages.  The first is that Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Zayed al-Khayareen paid over a billion dollars to free the hostages.  This version has caused concern as those who would have received such a ransom include groups that are classified as terrorist organisations, including General Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force and personally subject to US and EU sanctions; and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, once known as al-Nusra Front, when it was an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.  The texts, emails and voicemails supporting this version of events have been published today on the BBC website.  Qatar officials accept that these messages are genuine, though they claim there has been some selective curating or editing.

The exchanges between Ambassador Khayareen and Sheikh Mohammed tell the story of the negotiations, starting from when Qatar learned that the group who had taken the hostages was Kataib Hezbollah (the Party of God Brigades), an Iraqi Shia militia supported by Iran. Once it was clear they wanted money, Ambassador Khayareen texted Sheikh Mohammed: "I told them, 'Give us back 14 of our people... and we will give you half of the amount.'" At this stage in the negotiations, the exact amount was not named.  After five days, the group offered to release three hostages. "They want a gesture of goodwill from us as well," the ambassador wrote. "This is a good sign... that they are in a hurry and want to end everything soon." Two days later when the ambassador waited in the Green Zone in Baghdad, the kidnappers arrived, not with hostages but with a USB memory stick containing a video of a solitary captive.  The messages obtained by the BBC show Sheikh Mohammed commenting: "What guarantee do we have that the rest are with them?. Delete the video from your phone... Make sure it doesn't leak, to anyone."  Mr Khayareen agreed, saying: "We don't want their families to watch the video and get emotionally affected."

The texts and voicemails obtained by the BBC show that the kidnappers added to their demands, going beyond money and demanding Qatar should leave the Saudi-led coalition battling Shia rebels in Yemen. Then they asked that Qatar secure the release of Iranian soldiers held prisoner by rebels in Syria.  They then reverted to financial demands, increasing their demands to include side payments for themselves.

In April 2016, the phone records mentioned a new name: Qasem Soleimani, Kataib Hezbollah's Iranian patron.  At this stage the ransom had reached $1bn, with the kidnappers seeming to want even more than that.  A text from the ambassador said: "They want to exhaust us and force us to accept their demands immediately. We need to stay calm and not to rush." But, he told Sheikh Mohammed, "You need to be ready with $$$$." The minister replied: "God helps!"
During November 2016, the demands spiralled into new realms, General Soleimani wanted Qatar to help implement the so-called "four towns agreement" in Syria.

The hostage crisis ended in April 2017 when a Qatar Airways plane flew to Baghdad to deliver money and bring the hostages back. This was confirmed by Qatari officials, though Qatar Airways itself did not comment.  Qatar’s officials confirm that a large sum in cash was sent - but they say it was for the Iraqi government, not terrorists. The payments were for "economic development" and "security co-operation". "We wanted to make the Iraqi government fully responsible for the hostages' safety," the officials say. Qatar says the money they flew to Baghdad remains in a vault in the Iraqi central bank "on deposit".  But there are international concerns that the money went to organisations that are classified as terrorist by the United States.

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