HOW SWEET

Somali Kidnapper Contacted American Ex-Hostage on Facebook to Say Hi, Feds Say

“How are you?” the man’s captor wrote, according to a newly-unsealed federal complaint. “I am ur friend… I hope you are fine.”

A Somali national the feds believe was involved in the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in 2012 contacted the hostage online after his release to inquire about his well-being, according to a criminal complaint first obtained by The Daily Beast. The complaint, which was unsealed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, charges Bashir Yare with grabbing an American out of a vehicle at gunpoint in Jan. 2012 in Galkayo, Somalia. The hostage was eventually released in Sept. 2014, following a ransom payment by the man’s family, prosecutors say. (The hostage, who is not named in the complaint, appears to match the description of journalist Michael Scott Moore.) Two months after he was freed, the hostage got a surprising Facebook message from someone he recognized as another one of his captors, according to the complaint. In the note, an unindicted co-conspirator IDed in the complaint as “CC-1,” said, “How are you? I am ur friend… I hope you are fine.” Yare, who received $16,000 of the reported $1.6 million ransom, was arrested on April 2. He remains detained pending trial, according to court records.

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Justin RohrlichReporter

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