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Couple freed after ransom paid to Somali pirates get bad news as they spend first night of freedom in Kenya
After being held hostage by Somali pirates for over a year, Paul and Rachel Chandler were ecstatic to be set free at last over the weekend. But euphoria soon turned to sorrow when the couple were told that Paul's father died in July while they were still in captivity.
In a statement today, they asked for privacy as they "adjust to the situation" and come to terms with their loss.
The couple spent their first night of freedom at the British high commission in Nairobi and will fly home tomorrow evening. Sources told the Guardian they were expected at Heathrow after 7pm.
Stephen Collett, Rachel's brother, said: "It is fantastic news. They are almost certainly coming home tomorrow and we couldn't be happier."
The couple were handed over to local officials in the Somali town of Adado after a ransom of up to £620,000 was reportedly paid to their kidnappers.
A Somali official told Channel 4 that some of this money came from the British government – a claim vehemently denied by David Cameron.
A Downing Street spokesman said the prime minister had phoned Paul Chandler and expressed "joy at their release and praised their bravery".
Cameron gave assurances the government would give the couple all the support they needed and would reunite them with their family soon, the spokesman added.
He also stressed no UK aid money to Somalia had been diverted to help pay the couple's ransom.
"The government has a policy on ransom payments which is, we don't do them," he said.
As attention focused on how the Chandlers were released, reports emerged that a former minicab driver from east London oversaw the transfer of more than £280,000 to the Somali kidnappers.
Dahir Kadiye, 56, a Somali Briton from Leytonstone, claims to have been at the heart of negotiations with the pirates. He was filmed by Channel 4 News meeting the Chandlers at a release point in the desert on Saturday afternoon.
He claims to have taken the job as hostage negotiator six months ago because his children had told him they felt ashamed at school following a broadcast on the British couple's plight.
He said he secured their release "on humanitarian grounds".
Kadiye describes himself as a businessman and told Channel 4 that he had arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1997 and had run a taxi firm near Marble Arch but sold it two years ago. Someone with the same name living in nearby Walthamstow, east London, was registered as a director of a company called Access For Somalis for nine months in 1996, according to Companies House records.
The company, which was initially set up in Birmingham, was struck off the companies' register in 2008.
Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Rugman claimed in an article for the Times that Kadiye had previously brokered the release of the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker, for an estimated $3m (£1.85m).
He wrote that Kadiye had set up a private security firm called Task Force International Somalia in 2008.
The pirates said that a final payment of $300,000 was delivered to them in an electronic transfer to Adado last week.
Last night his niece Safiyo Gelle told ITV that he was moved to act because he was from Somalia.
"We're absolutely amazed about what my uncle's done and it's beyond belief," she said. "We're very proud of him,extremely proud of him. This is something that he always wanted to do.
"He's always kind and helping other people. He's a very humanitarian person.
"He's the peace negotiator in the family. When we have family conflicts he's always sorting out, he's like the head man. Everybody tells their side of complaints to him and he's the peacemaker."
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