A Swiss court has rejected a lawsuit by the Dutch government seeking to recover ransom money paid to release an employee of a Swiss aid agency in Russia, Swissinfo Web site reports.

The Dutch authorities brought the unusual case against Medecins Sans Frontieres Switzerland, after €1 million ($1,3 million) were handed over to free Arjan Erkel, a Dutch national kidnapped in the Caucasus region of Dagestan in August 2002.

In a statement on Thursday, the medical aid group said the court in canton Geneva had ruled against the Netherlands and ordered the Dutch to pay the NGO €46,000 ($60,000) plus legal costs.

“This was the first time a democratically elected government has sued an international humanitarian organization to recover money used to pay a ransom,” said Medecins Sans Frontieres spokesman Aymeric Peguillan.

“We find it problematic that a government — especially a government which claims to support humanitarian action — would go to court with an NGO,” he added.

The Dutch government had sought to recover €777,000 ($ 1 million) paid to free Erkel from unknown gunmen in the volatile Russian republic. Erkel was finally released on April 11, 2004.

MSF, which had hung a gigantic photo of Erkel outside its downtown Geneva headquarters during his captivity, denies having entered into an agreement with Dutch authorities on repaying the ransom money.

The NGO has always refuted having paid ransoms to release kidnapped staff out of principle, so that its workers are not seen as “walking bank safes”.

It also countersued for €230,000 it put up to free Erkel, a request that was turned down by the court. But despite this outcome, MSF management was satisfied.

Luc Hafner, the Dutch government’s lawyer, said the Netherlands had “advanced” the money at the request of MSF with the understanding that it would be repaid, but the humanitarian group did not return the funds.

“The decision is wrong in law. Swiss principles were not applied properly,” he explained. “The decision is very detrimental to NGOs because it will stop all possible collaboration with them,” he said, stressing the Dutch authorities plan to appeal.

A spokesman for the Dutch foreign ministry, Ahmed Dadou, said: “We are principally against negotiating with kidnappers. What we tried to do is to help MSF out, purely financially, and we assumed we would get our money back later on.”

The Netherlands’ embassy in Moscow paid a total of €1 million, including the €230,000 of the aid agency’s money, to a group of former Russian intelligence agents who brokered Erkel’s release, he said.

In a separate statement, the Dutch foreign ministry said that it would consider “the consequences this judgment could have on providing services and mediating in similar situations in the future” before making an appeal.

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