'Pirates will kill us in a week or two'

Published on Saturday 21 November 2009 00:15

A BRITISH couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said last night they fear they will be killed or handed to terrorists if a ransom is not paid soon.

Paul and Rachel Chandler were kidnapped four weeks ago by pirates who seized their 38-foot yacht, the Lynn Rival.

In a televised interview on Channel 4 news the Chandlers are seen surrounded by armed men, some of whom have their guns pointed directly at the retired couple.

"I have no doubt that they will not hesitate to kill us in a week or so from now," Paul Chandler, 59, said in the interview.

ITN, which produces Channel 4 News, said the Chandlers and their relatives had agreed that the footage, the first of the couple since their capture, could be aired.

Pirates have demanded $7 million (4.2 million) to release the Chandlers, but the British government insists it won't pay ransoms to kidnappers.

"We are under threat and we are told that we will not be fed and given water, so we are very concerned about the future," Rachel Chandler, 55, said in the video.

"Our captors are very impatient now that nobody has been in touch to enter into negotiations. So we ask the government, and the people of Britain and our family, to do whatever they can to enter into negotiations with these people to buy back our lives," she said.

She said that the couple had been told by their captors that a terrorist cell is searching for them.

"We are also feeling very much under threat now that these people themselves won't hesitate to take our lives," she said.

An Islamic militia commander and a local elder in the central Somali village of Bahdo said earlier that rival pirates and militia groups had fought for control of the British couple.

Britain's Foreign Office said last night in a statement that it was aware of the video, and said the footage would likely be distressing for the family.

But the ministry said government policy on ransom payments was clear.

"We do not make substantive concessions to hostage takers, including the payment of ransoms. These are innocent tourists, we seek the immediate release of Paul and Rachel," the Foreign Office said.

The Chandlers, married for 28 years, took early retirement about three years ago, sailing across the world. In an entry on a website in June they wrote that they were headed for Tanzania, after initially delaying a voyage there "because of the Somali pirate problem".

In the video footage, Paul Chandler insisted the couple were in reasonable health and unharmed.

"Mentally we are under great stress and threatened," he said. "Our kidnappers are losing patience. They are concerned that their has been no response at all to their demands for money."

Mr Chandler, who had previously been permitted to conduct a telephone interview with ITV News, urged the government to intervene before "we just sleepwalk to a tragic ending".

Yemen's coastguard said yesterday that Somali pirates had hijacked a Panamanian cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, between the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

A Yemeni coastguard official said the Red Sea Spirit was carrying an unknown number of crew when it was hijacked yesterday morning, 36 nautical miles from the Yemeni port of Balhaf.