Africa leaders want payment of ransoms made illegal

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - African leaders condemned the payment of kidnap ransoms to free hostages and said the practice should be made illegal because the cash is being used by militants to fund violence.

The 53-member African Union adopted a resolution against ransom payments at a summit in Sirte, in Libya. Some countries worry ransoms paid to hostage-takers in Somalia and the northern Sahara could fall into the hands of al Qaeda and its allies.

"The (AU) vigorously condemns the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups to secure the freedom of hostages ... (and) asks the international community to criminalize the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups," said the resolution.

The resolution, adopted late on Friday, stopped short of binding member states not to make ransom payments.

Ransom payments have been brought into focus by a spate of kidnappings of foreigners in the northern Sahara, a vast and thinly-populated desert tract that spans parts of Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.

Al Qaeda's North African wing, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said it had kidnapped two Canadian diplomats and four European tourists late last year.

The two diplomats and two of the tourists were released in April in Mali and officials did not say if ransoms were paid.

AQIM killed one of the remaining hostages. Briton Edwin Dyer and a Swiss national are still being held.

Algeria has been leading efforts to crack down on ransom payments. It says AQIM is using ransoms it receives in neighboring countries to finance attacks on security forces inside Algeria.

Western diplomats say they suspect some African states have either paid ransoms to free hostages or acted as intermediaries for ransom payments.

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Sophie Hares)