Pirate ransom may fall to £100,000

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Andrew Mwangura, co-ordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said he was working with Somali elders to help free the Chandlers.

The Somali pirates had been persuaded that the couple were not rich and might release them for £100,000, he said.

Mr Mwangura told the Mail on Sunday: "The pirates realise now that the Chandlers are not rich people. They will be persuaded to lower their demand, maybe to £100,000."

In a phone call taken by the BBC on Friday night, one of the pirates was reported as saying: "If they do not harm us, we will not harm them - we only need a little amount of seven million dollars."

But after seeing the report, the Foreign Office said the Government would not make any "substantive concessions to hostage-takers, and that includes the payment of ransom".

Mr Chandler, 59, and his wife, 55, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were captured in the early hours of October 23 when armed men boarded their yacht as they sailed from the Seychelles towards Tanzania.

Leah Mickleborough, the couple's niece, said the family had been unaware of the ransom request before they saw it on the television news. She said: "We had no idea what the figure would be. We have seen the report on the BBC and we will look into it."

The caller is reported to have said the amount would cover damage caused by Nato. He told the BBC: "Nato operations have had a lot of negative impact here, they have destroyed a lot of equipment belonging to the poor local fishermen.

"They arrest fishermen and destroy their equipment, in defiance of our local administrations. They illegally transfer the fishermen to their own prisons, and prisons of other foreign countries, so when you consider the damage and all the people affected, we say the amount is not big."