ABSTRACT
Kidnapping is another favored weapon in the arsenal of terrorists. The crime can be used as a fund-raising device in the form of ransom payment, for extortion by trading the release of the victim for some specific goal or action, or simply as a publicity event to thrust the kidnappers’ organization and cause into the headlines and onto television screens. Kidnapping has been especially favored by terrorist groups in Italy, Ireland, Central and South America, and the Middle East. Second-generation terrorist groups also tend to make frequent use of kidnapping. These are groups that may trace their origins to political causes or ethnic or national freedom efforts, but have since lost their ideological orientation-though not necessarily the rhetoric-and have become merely self-indulgent criminal terrorists.
