To date, there has been no formal announcement of changes to the government’s hostage response protocols, which came under intense public scrutiny after the beheadings of two Canadian hostages in the Philippines nearly two years ago. Both changes announced by the RCMP this week were recommendations captives’ families expressed to the Star in the 2016 series. At times during Lindhout’s captivity, Stewart wrote, her phone rang constantly as she worried her daughter would be calling. “At one point, the negotiator on duty that day told me that if I tried to answer the phone he would rip it out of the wall,” Stewart wrote. After the RCMP dropped their case, Stewart and Brennan’s family hired private security firm AKE to negotiate the pair’s released in exchange for $600,000 ransom.

Source: thestar February 14, 2018 00:45 UTC