Ex-US envoy: $17 mn French ransom funded Mali Qaeda

Vicki Huddleston's allegations, which she said dated back two years, strengthened the view that the Mali rebellion was funded largely by ransoms paid in recent years. In February 2011, three hostages seized at a French uranium mine in Niger — including one Frenchwoman — were freed; four remain in the hands al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali.

The Islamist rebels retreating northward are apparently taking their Western hostages with them - among them the mine workers and three other French citizens seized elsewhere.

Huddleston, who served as ambassador to Mali and held positions in the State Department and Defence Department in the US before retiring, told France's iTele network that the French money allowed al-Qaeda's North Africa branch to flourish in Mali.

"Although governments deny that they're paying ransoms, 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 and allows them to buy weapons and recruit,'' she said in the comments that aired Friday.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert, said a French policy of paying for hostages through middlemen has been clear for years and has broad support from a public that sees near daily references to the hostages on television and in print.

Huddleston said the $17 million payment was intended to win freedom for the hostages kidnapped in September 2010 from their guarded villas in the Niger town of Arlit, where they were working with French nuclear company Areva. "France paid ransom for the release of these hostages," Huddleston said.

Claude Gueant, ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy's chief of staff at the time, Friday denied that France ever paid a ransom and said intermediaries had been negotiating to free the hostages. Philippe Lalliot, the current spokesman for the foreign ministry, dismissed Huddleston's comments as based on "rumour".

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