Lto history of 240 Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas is the most striking: it struck international public opinion due to the number of people involved, the violence and the drama. But the news has always been dotted with kidnappings of people, also carried out for the purpose of extortion, as well as for terrorism and political purposes.
As the kidnapping of the two Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, in Iraq in September 2004, designed to ask for a ransom. Not to mention the long list of anonymous kidnappers, active in our house from the Seventies to the Nineties, which he kidnapped from Fabrizio De André and Dori Ghezzi in 1979, to the small Farouk Kassam in 1992.
The negotiator
Although these actions are completely different from each other in terms of scenarios, kidnappers and motivations, there is something that they have in common. Behind the scenes, there is always a counterpart working to bring abducted people home safe and sound. He is the negotiator, from the police force or intelligence, who works in a team with other operators. A difficult job, with a very high level of adrenaline and responsibility, which today requires increasingly sophisticated skills. For security and confidentiality reasons, these people are not heroes to be paraded in front of the cameras, even if they have experienced events worthy of a James Bond film. But the commitment of these men and women is strategic in crisis situations.
An Italian excellence
We talked about it with Sabrina Magris, president, teacher and founder of École Universitaire Internationale in Rome, structure responsible at European level for the training of hostage negotiators from all European states, but also the only one in Italy to transversally prepare our armed forces, police and intelligence personnel to deal with hostage negotiation. In 2022, École Universitaire Internationale organized the World Intelligence Services Symposium for the first time in Italy.
Sabrina Magris is the founder, teacher and president of École Universitaire Internationale, a structure that trains hostage negotiators.
It is an Italian flagship, which is also used from abroad to train, for example, UN and NATO personnel. Becoming an internationally recognized expert in this field is no joke. «I was attracted to the topics of terrorism and intelligence since I was young» says Magris. «I graduated in Law in Italy, then I studied law and international investigations in the United States, criminology in Italy, investigative psychology in the USA, anti-terrorism and intelligence in Italy and the United States. The École was founded in 2012 from the need to have a structure that acted as a bridge between traditional academic studies and the need to have brains capable of thinking quickly, when faced with to challenges and threats present in the world after 9/11». Let’s say it straight away for the benefit of those who may be attracted to this profession: this training cannot be accessed after high school, you need to be already active professionals who wish to refine their mental and non-physical skills. And there is also a barrier: you need to come from a country allied with Italy. “There is a saying in the industry: they are all allies, but no one is a friend,” Magris points out. If there is a dilemma, the national interest still prevails.
The methods created by psychologists
A professional who today can move on two different levels. «There are situations managed by the police force, from the robber who barricades himself with hostages in a bank or in a post office, to the individual who wants to commit suicide, or who locks himself in his house holding onto a family member» explains Magris. “And then, there are kidnappings like that of the hostages in Israel, or the kidnappings of aid workers, journalists, religious workers abroad. At this juncture, the negotiator must have transversal skills, in terms of geopolitics, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience. NATO is working on this last area in particular: we need to know how the brain works, how communication is used, how a terrorist organization or enemy state thinks. The negotiator learns to negotiate, to use words and know their value. Even a single term can be perceived differently by the other person. And the silences, the latencies also count.”
Understand who you are dealing with
In short, in addition to understanding how a terrorist thinks, those who deal with him must be attentive to details and even empathetic, even if he is not always face to face with the other party. «We talk on the phone, sometimes while in different countries and through third parties before reaching the right interlocutor. It can also happen that a terrorist passes himself off as a member of an organization of which he is not a member.”
The skill lies in being able to understand who is in front of you. And what does he want: the motive could be money, but also the creation of tensions in the country to gain power, or requests at a political and geopolitical level. To save the hostage, you need to be quick in your analysis, in the collection of information and everything needed to understand who is in front of you. «Even in cases where the police are involved, perhaps on national territory, the risk remains high because human lives are at stake. The report for 2022, released by the Ministry of the Interior last spring, speaks of 219 reports of kidnappings in Italy.” Of course, there are no longer political kidnappings like that of Aldo Moro and those for money that lasted for months have also decreased, but there are still flash kidnappings for extortion reasons, or linked to psychological and relational dynamics.
What is the role of women? «There are starting to be various female negotiators in the intelligence community, while they are already present in the police force. In some cases, the presence of a female negotiator is useful. The kidnapper may underestimate her, considering her less capable, and lower her guard. And so she gets stuck more easily »comments the president. “It’s always a question of understanding the opponent and whether one can leverage his prejudice.” But there are no single answers. Let’s take the case of a jihadist terrorist: he could refuse to negotiate with a woman on principle, or his denial could be a strategy to prolong the time, forcing the other party to find another solution. «Each case is a story in itself: even an expert figure, who has already solved other events in the same place, cannot rely only on his previous experience. This is why we need to increase cognitive abilities and overcome biases, the mental limits that block us in reasoning.”
Methods for negotiating
However, there are also negotiation methods. École Universitaire Internationale in collaboration with other European structures created Psych Evolving Negotiation Strategy (Pens), the only methodology for negotiating in the field of intelligence and counter-terrorism, which works on the psyche of the subject. Other systems are based, for example, on international relations or a legal framework. «The one most used for police negotiations is the PON created by two FBI psychologists based on Harvard legal negotiation methods» comments Magris. «A key event was the story of the athlete hostages in Munich in 1972, where the negotiation was a total failure and the kidnapping ended in tragedy. Since then the need has been felt to create a methodology.”
The approach has changed since the 1980s: once, for example, kidnappers spoke on the phone with family members, today it is absolutely forbidden. Not only for the emotional component, but also to avoid any connivance. But in the case of an Italian kidnapped abroad for ransom, who decides whether to pay or not? “The state. Not the relatives, not the team working on the case or the negotiator. Even if the rule is not to pay. The release of the hostage is not the end of the story. If you decide to pay, the money is traced and everything is done to trace the instigators.”
We also fight on social media
If the kidnapping ends with the death of the victim, it is a defeat for the negotiator. «Usually he is supported by psychiatrists and psychologists who try to support him. We cannot afford to lose a subject capable of dealing with the enemy. However, we must not imagine him as a single person, but part of a team.”
Sabrina Magris also deals with Psychological Operations (Psyops): the war of minds is the new battlefield. «Today, a terrorist organization also fights by putting videos online that shape the minds of possible young people to be recruited or that spread false or manipulated information» explains the teacher. «The intelligence must intervene by making a counter-communication with influence operations, for example delegitimize the terrorist organization». In short we also fight on social mediaand you have to know how to do it right.
One last question: have you ever held negotiations for the release of hostages? Sibylline answer. «I don’t just deal with training».
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