Word: ransoms
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...close; mud, apparently from shoes, lay on the floor and on the shutterless windowsill below which, contrary to previous report, there was no piece of furniture; an empty crib standing in its position toward the centre of the room. The parents and nurse may have discovered the original ransom note, but it was not opened until the chief and deputy chief of police arrived from Hopewell, three and a half miles away, summoned at once by the excited parents. By various police leaks the contents of the ransom note and its identifying "token"--a simple affair used often by criminals...
...long. This new Capone offer supported a theory, held by even those closest to Col. Lindbergh, that the proper criminals got Col. Lindbergh's $50,000 and then proceeded to turn the baby over to another gang. This gang could use the child as an instrument for extorting further ransom. Or it might make a favorable impression on the nation's prosecutors by returning the child gratis. It might use the child as a hostage, returnable for the freedom of some potent hoodlum (the Senator Bingham theory...
...Before the bombing of the ferry, Abu Sayyaf was known as little more than a criminal gang that kidnapped people, particularly foreigners, for ransom. But under new leader Khadaffy Janjalani, a militant who learned his trade in the mid-1990s in camps in Afghanistan run by al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf has returned to its original goal: establishing an Islamic state through jihad. According to Philippine and regional intelligence sources, Janjalani is strengthening ties with not just M.N.L.F. rebels but also Jemaah Islamiah, the network of Islamic militants blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and which regional security officials...
...rebels say that the ambush was provoked by a military offensive the day before in which a local ustadz, or religious mentor, his wife and two children died. (The military is silent on that story.) The rebels include members of Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaeda linked kidnap-for-ransom group, and renegades of the Moro National Liberation Front (M.N.L.F.), a Muslim group that once fought for a separate state. The military estimates the rebels' numbers at 800. By the end of the week, the armed forces had sent seven battalions?roughly 3,000 soldiers?to the island...
...alive; a satellite had picked up the sound of their voices. Letta played the crackling tape to the opposition politicians. They agreed it was better to negotiate with the hostage takers, who realized they'd been discovered, than to launch a military blitz. Though it fueled suspicions that a ransom was paid (which the government has denied), Letta believed a negotiated handover would help the young women get home safely, which was what mattered most. And keeping the opposition in the loop would provide political cover. "All of the most delicate negotiations," says one Berlusconi ally, "have the stamp...