I understand the pain and anxiety that Bigley’s brother is experiencing. I hope he will also consider the pain and anxiety that innumerable other relatives of future hostages will face if the hostage takers discover that kidnapping is a profitable enterprise. From AAP:
The brother of Iraq hostage Ken Bigley was investigating whether it might be possible to buy his sibling’s life.
Paul Bigley was looking into reports in a Kuwaiti newspaper that a new Iraqi militant group had intervened to help negotiate the 62-year-old engineer’s release.
He said he had heard the reports which suggested that “a different gang will want to sell him back to us”.
He is now checking their authenticity with his business contacts in the Middle East.
“If this is the case we will have to buy him back, it is as simple as that,” he said.