British couple held Somali pirates since being kidnapped last year make appeal television interview
Paul and Rachel Chandler, British couple who have been held hostage Somali kidnappers more than seven months, have appealed new prime minister David Cameron secure their release in television interview broadcast tonight.
The couple were taken hostage when armed Somali pirates boarded their yacht, the Lynn Rival, in the early hours 23 October last year as they sailed from the Seychelles towards Tanzania.
In an interview broadcast Channel 4 News tonight Paul Chandler, 60, offered his congratulations David Cameron taking office before adding: “As new prime minister we desperately need him make definitive public statement the government’s attitude us. If the government is not prepared help then they must say so because the gangsters’ expectations hopes have been raised at the thought new government there might be different approach.”
The retired civil engineer revealed that 97 the couple’s days in captivity had been spent in solitary confinement, separated one another: “We′ve never been apart more than few days [previously],” he said. “We′ve been married almost 30 years, so be separated real torture.”
He said that on one occasion they had been subjected to violence. “The second time we were separated we refused to separated initially, and that was a bit silly,” he said. “We were physically separated, we were whipped and Rachel was hit with a rifle butt and has a broken tooth. It’s a long time ago, the wounds have healed. And that was the only occasion, only one occasion, when we had any real aggression.”
Despite their ordeal, the couple appeared reasonable health defiantly rounded their kidnappers, even though their heavily armed captors were lurking off-camera.
Rachel Chandler, an economist, said the couple were “animals” to their kidnappers. “They don’t care about our feelings our family our lives what they’ve taken. They don’t care whose lives they ruin. They just want the money.” She berated the kidnappers for showing “no compassion”, accusing them of only keeping the couple alive because of their monetary worth to them.
The couple said that it was their families back home that gave them the strength to keep going. They relieve the tedium with a small supply books, playing cards endlessly, and brushing their teeth up to ten minutes on end.
Paul Chandler claimed the Royal Navy had proved itself “laughing stock” for failing intervene when pirates boarded the couple’s yacht. The Royal Navy refuelling vessel, the Wave Knight, came within just 50ft (15m) of the couple’s yacht, the Lynn Rival, at one point its crew watched Chandlers being forced off their yacht as they were ordered not to fire.
“The fact that we’re alive and talking you suggests that they were right do what they did,” Paul Chandler. “But it really makes them – the whole, that fleet warships – laughing stock and that what they are, laughing stock these people. They can’t do anything.” The pirates initially demanded £4.3m ransom free the Chandlers a deal that would have seen them released £100,000 was blocked Foreign Office last year because it said it would not allow payments hostage-takers. A Foreign Office spokesman said tonight: “The UK government’s policy not making or facilitating substantive concessions hostage-takers, including the payment ransoms, long-standing and clear. This has been the policy successive governments and has not changed. Our thoughts are their families on the release this video, and our consular officials are in close touch them. We again urge those holding Paul and Rachel release them safely, immediately and unconditionally.”
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