What Amanda Lindhout says in her memoir about her Somali captor
On Sunday, Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout revealed that she believes that the Somali man whom the RCMP arrested in Ottawa last week was “Adam” – an educated, English-speaking Somali captor she met after being taken captive in Mogadishu in 2008 with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan.
“He terrorized my mother, phoning her multiple times a day and at all hours,” Ms. Lindhout wrote in a Facebook post, recounting her 15-month hostage-for-ransom ordeal. “He also revealed things about himself, speaking to her about his desire to visit Canada, for example.”
And that may have been a significant hint.
Ali Omar Ader is now in an Ottawa-area jail cell, facing a hostage-taking charge, after being apparently lured to Canada by police so that he could be arrested.
While courts must determine whether he and “Adam” are the same man, here is what Ms. Lindhout had to say about the latter in her memoir, A House in the Sky.
Adam introduces himself
“I am the commander,” he said. He shook Nigel’s hand but made no move to shake mine. When he spoke it was with only a slight accent. “What is your country?” …
Adam took down our names and professions and addresses. I gave him my father’s phone number in Sylvan Lake. … Adam smiled and closed his notebook. “Inshallah, this will be over quickly,” he said. “You are my brother and my sister.” …
A while later he returned to the room, offering some good news. “We no longer believe you are spies,” he said. Before anyone could get too excited he tacked on another announcement: “Allah” he said “has put it into my heart to ask for a ransom.”
Adam says he has spoken to Ms. Lindhout’s mother and sister
“I talked with your sister.” His face broke into a smile, showing the gap of his missing front tooth. “She is … what is the word for it? Panicked.”
The thought tightened my throat. “My parents?” I said.
“Your mother, she is good, very good,” Adam said nonchalantly. He offered nothing more.
Who was Adam?
Slowly, we began to extract information. Most of the boys had gone to some form of training camp to learn to be a soldier. …Ahmed and Adam had both worked as teachers. … The leaders – Ahmed, Adam, and a third tall man we’d come to call Romeo – appeared to be reasonably well-off, with cars and expensive-looking clothes.
The RCMP advise Ms. Lindhout’s mother to stop talking to Adam
The idea was that if she stopped picking up, Adam would be forced to deal with a team of Canadian intelligence agents based in Nairobi instead. … Adam’s frustration with the new phone situation was evident. He sometimes called my mother’s number more than ten times in a day, hanging up without leaving a voicemail. Denied phone access, he sent angry e-mails filled with misspellings to the Hotmail address my mother had used when arranging to send our care package in the fall. One message, sent back in January, around the time of our escape attempt, summed up his ongoing point in its subject line: ‘Danger is coming soon to Amanda and Nigel if you don’t pay the ransom we want !!!!!’
Ms. Lindhout’s family offers $434,000. Adam wants more
Adam dug in. The phone calls grew heated. He suggested that I must not be my mother’s biological child since she cared so little about me. Fed up with his unwillingness to drop the ransom demand even slightly, my mother at one point accused him of “playing games.” This ratcheted up Adam’s temper even higher. And led to a threat. “I am playing a game?” he said with blistering scorn. “You should see my game.”
The Globe and Mail