The secret ploy that saved Wood

The Age (Melbourne) ^ | 26th June 2005 | Russell Skelton

[naturalman1975]

Hostage Douglas Wood's release was secretly negotiated by Australia about 10 days before he was "accidentally found" by Iraqi troops, The Sunday Age can reveal.

But his freedom was delayed while an elaborate plan was hatched to free him without having to pay $US100,000 ($A130,000) demanded by the criminal gang holding him.

The Sunday Age has learnt that arrangements were made by Australian authorities to fly Mr Wood from Dubai to Australia on an RAAF aircraft as early as June 6, but this was suddenly cancelled without explanation.

Inquiries indicate that members of the emergency response team, headed by senior Australian diplomat Nick Warner, believed that Mr Wood should be freed without any money being paid to the gang.

Federal police on the response team argued that by meeting the demand, they condoned the payment of a ransom, even though the money was being donated by the Wood family and the Islamic community in Sydney.

This would set a dangerous precedent in any future hostage crisis, they argued.

Mr Wood is to give his version of events on Channel Ten tonight in a special interview with Sandra Sully.

But investigations by The Sunday Age can reveal:

· His snatching from a hide-out in the dangerous Baghdad neighbourhood of Ghazaliyah was carefully planned.

· Iraqi soldiers were used to pick Mr Wood up on June 15, just hours before he was to be handed over, in an attempt to disguise Australia's behind-the-scenes involvement.

· Senior Australian Islamic cleric Sheikh Taj al-din al-Hilali played an instrumental role in the release, conferring almost daily with Mr Warner. His communications were almost certainly bugged.

· Sheikh Hilali was the link between the intermediaries and the response team and took great personal risks to keep the communication open. By monitoring his communications, the response team was able to pinpoint Mr Wood's location.

· The sheikh secured two crucial strategic concessions from the kidnappers through intermediaries. The first was to have the ransom demand dropped from an initial $US25 million to $US100,000. The second was an agreement to release Mr Wood before any money or payment in kind was paid. This was to prove crucial in securing Mr Wood's release without paying his abductors a cent.

· Intermediaries working with the gang used mobile phones paid for and supplied by Sheikh Hilali. Calls to and from those phones would have been easily monitored by intelligence agencies.

· The cost of the 47-day operation, which involved officials and personnel from Defence, the Foreign Affairs Department, the SAS, Federal Police and intelligence agencies, has been estimated to be about $3 million.

A Foreign Affairs spokeswoman declined to comment on the plan to bring Mr Wood out 10 days earlier, on the grounds that she could not talk about operational matters.

As to the cost of the operation, she said: "The total cost of our efforts to free Mr Wood has not been calculated. Costs were spread across a number of agencies."

But she did not dispute the figure of $3 million. The spokeswoman said no ransom had been paid to the gang by the Wood family or the Government.

Sheikh Hilali said yesterday that he still felt honour-bound to make good his promise that funds would be paid for the reconstruction of Iraq, but he did not see that payment as being in exchange for the release of Mr Wood. Speaking through an interpreter, he said the promise would be made good. He declined to rule out the possibility that his communications with the intermediaries had been monitored.

"There is more intelligence surveillance in Iraq than anywhere else on the planet," he said. "You would have to assume that everything I did and said was being monitored."

He said he could not rule out the possibility that the Australian response team had managed to locate Mr Wood after he talked to the intermediaries by phone from Cairo two days before it was agreed to release the hostage.

He had made calls from the Australian embassy in Cairo and from his home, he said. Sheikh Hilali said he was in constant contact with Mr Warner. When he was in Baghdad, he briefed Mr Warner daily. Many briefings had been recorded. "Mr Warner knows the truth, but it is up to him to tell it," he said.

Mr Warner is on leave and could not be reached for comment.

Sheikh Hilali rejected media reports that two of Mr Wood's Iraqi colleagues had been murdered by the kidnappers weeks before the Australian's rescue.

"I have been constantly in touch with those families and they definitely say the men were killed far more recently than that and possibly as a consequence of Douglas' release," he said.

Hafez Malas, an executive member of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, who conferred regularly with the sheikh during the protracted negotiations, doubts that Mr Wood was accidentally picked up by Iraqi troops during a sweep of the Baghdad suburb.

"It is an extraordinary coincidence that Iraqi troops would stumble across him on the day of his release," he said.

"Intelligence services would not have been doing their job if they were not listening in on the mufti's calls to the intermediaries. Nobody was killed, so it makes you wonder, doesnt it?" Mr Malas believed there was no obligation on the Wood family or the Islamic community to pay the kidnappers anything.

"The money was to be paid over after Douglas Wood was delivered, not before," he said. "But when the Iraqi forces freed Wood the money was not paid, and it won't be paid. Our obligation is to the Iraqi people, not this criminal gang."

[Numbers Guy]

This reads like pure self-serving spin from the Sheikh. The Sheikh had personal demands--that all troops leave Iraq (not just Aussie troops). This was made supposedly after he had arranged a bribe be paid for Wood's release.

So either he was trying to use the Wood case to undermine Allied efforts in Iraq, or else he's lying in telling this story. Or both.

[naturalman1975]

This reads like pure self-serving spin from the Sheikh

That certainly seems to be a very possible interpretation - there's no doubt that Hilali hoped to use this situation to his political advantage, to promote his agenda - and he is certainly opposed to the war. But it's also clear that there's quite a lot about this that we don't know yet - and personally, consistent with security issues, I hope we do find out eventually.