PARIS — A former US ambassador to Mali has alleged France paid a $17 million ransom to free hostages seized from a French mining site — cash she said funded the al Qaeda-linked militants its troops are now fighting.
French officials denied paying any ransom.
Vicki Huddleston said the money let al Qaeda’s North African branch flourish in Mali.
“Everyone is pretty much aware that money has passed hands indirectly through different accounts and it ends up in the treasury, let us say, of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” she told France’s iTélé TV in remarks airing yesterday.
She said the payment was intended to win freedom for seven hostages kidnapped in September 2010 in the Niger town of Arlit, where they were working with French nuclear company Areva.
Three, including a Frenchwoman, were freed in February 2011; four remain in the Islamists’ hands.
Claude Gueant, at the time the chief of staff to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, denied that France ever paid a ransom, and a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry dismissed the allegations.
‘Payoff’ to Qaeda
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‘Payoff’ to Qaeda
