В первом случае точно требовали, я слышала беседу с CEO организации, на которую работал Foley.
It's very easy to have these theoretical policies about not paying a ransom until you're faced with the real life-and-death situation. Personally — and I know I speak for the Foleys as well — we would've paid a ransom. We were working very hard to raise the money. We had extensive conversations about this with branches of the United States government, with legal counsel. We were well schooled in the law and what was permissible for the family to do. So I had no problem with it. I can understand, giving money to these evil people is a very hard thing to do. I would judge no one who felt that it was entirely improper. But speaking for myself and for John and Diane Foley, we were prepared to do it if we could raise the money.
Правда, за него потребовали заоблачную сумму, которую было нереально собрать.
The correct information is 100 million euros. That is the demand in the e-mail from the captors that we received in November of 2013. So, obviously by current currency standards, that's more than 130 million U.S. dollars. We - I mean, we never expected that the United States government would pay a ransom or assist us in paying ransom. And I can tell you, Terry, that we never took the 100 million euro demand seriously. It was a sum that no one could meet. I mean, the government obviously could meet it. We have, you know, extensive knowledge of the ransoms that were actually paid for the European hostages who were released. And those sums were dramatically less. So when we strategized about what it would take to raise the money to have a ransom to free Jim, we had much different figures in mind.
GROSS: Like what?
BALBONI: We assumed it would be in the range of $5 million.
Вместе с Фоли держали ряд людей из других стран, и их отпустили домой (как предполагается, после выплаты выкупа).
Не платить за заложников террористам - официальная политика США и Великобритании.
"If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part." Richard Feynman