Political Hostage Taking in Western Europe - A Statistical Analysis (From Perspectives on Terrorism, P 99-130, 1983, Lawrence Zelic Freedman and Yonah Alexander, eds. - See NCJ-100393)

• NCJ Number: 100397
• Author(s): C C Aston
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 32 pages
• Sale Source: Scholarly Resources, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Twenty statistical tables and narrative analysis cover the number and characteristics of terrorist hostage incidents in Western Europe for 1970-78.

Abstract

The number and type of political hostage incidents are indicated by year and country. Types of incidents are kidnapping, siege, kidnap/siege, attempted kidnapping, attempted siege, attempted kidnapping/siege, planned kidnapping, and planned siege. The number of successful sieges is indicated for each year by location (embassy/inviolable premise, train, etc.), and the number and types of incidents committed by specific terrorist groups are specified by year. Data also depict the fate (arrested, killed, granted safe conduct, and escaped) of the hostage takers as well as the nature of kidnap and siege victims (diplomats, police/servicemen, capitalists, innocents, and government officials). Targets of terrorist demands are reported for both kidnappings and sieges (host government, foreign government, combination, private sector, and no/unclear demands). Data also encompass the nature of and response to terrorist demands, as well as global versus regional annual number of kidnappings and sieges. 25 footnotes.