According to a retired European intelligence official, a payment of 3.5 million euros was made for the release of Stephen McGown.
A South African tourist who was abducted nearly six years ago from an inn in Timbuktu, Mali, by the North African branch of Al Qaeda has been freed, officials said on Thursday.
The tourist, Stephen Malcolm McGown, 42, was the last of the “Timbuktu Three, ” who were abducted on Nov. 25,2011, to be released: A Dutch citizen was rescued in a French commando raid in 2015, and a Swedish man was released in June.
Mr. McGown’s lengthy captivity had become a cause célèbre in South Africa, but his freedom came at a price: A retired European intelligence official said on Thursday that 3.5 million euros (about $4.2 million) had been paid.
The retired official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said that the payment was negotiated through an intermediary, Gift of the Givers Foundation, a South African charity that had campaigned for Mr. McGown’s release, and that it was transferred by an undercover agent working for French security services in the Adrar des Iforas mountains, a massif in the deserts of northern Mali where Qaeda militants have held hostages.
“It was an operation managed by France and South African intelligence through an intermediary, ” the former official said.
South Africa’s foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who announced Mr. McGown’s release at a news conference in Pretoria on Thursday, responded vaguely when a reporter asked her whether a ransom had been paid.
“The South African government does not subscribe to payment of ransoms, ” she said. “That’s why I focused on the work we have been doing in the past six years: campaigning, engaging with governments, and with the captors the way we know how. That’s what we have been doing. And that’s what we can confirm.”
Gift of the Givers had previously been involved in an effort to free Yolande and Pierre Korkie, a South African couple abducted in Yemen in May 2013 by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The wife was released, but the husband and his cellmate — Luke Somers, an American photojournalist — were killed in December 2014, when United States commandos stormed the village where they were being held.
Imtiaz Sooliman, the founder of Gift of the Givers, did not immediately respond on Thursday to phone and email messages requesting comment.
The United States and Britain have strict no-ransom policies, but other countries, including France and Germany, have taken suitcases of cash to the desert to win the freedom of their citizens. The expenditures were disguised as “humanitarian aid to Africa.”
The group that held Mr. McGown emerged as Al Qaeda’s official branch in North Africa over a decade ago, rising to prominence in large part because of the extraordinary sums it garnered from ransoms.
Starting in 2003, with the abduction of 32 European tourists who were freed after government payments estimated to total €5 million, the group has kidnapped dozens of foreigners, including travelers, aid workers and journalists.
Few people were released without a payment of some kind or some form of prisoner swap. Ransoms in at least some of the cases were negotiated directly by Al Qaeda’s central leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr. McGown was freed a few days ago in northern Mali, an area dominated by Islamist militants.
He was taken hostage in 2011 along with two European tourists: Sjaak Rijke of the Netherlands, who was freed by French commandos in Mali, and Johan Gustafsson of Sweden, who was released in June.
The wife of Mr. Rijke survived the raid by the militants; the gunmen evidently did not notice her.
The three men were taken from the inn and herded into a truck at gunpoint. A fourth man — a German tourist who refused to get in the truck — was killed on the spot.
Ms. Nkoana-Mashabane, the foreign minister, declined on Thursday to discuss the condition of Mr. McGown, now back in South Africa. “Is he receiving the necessary support — the requisite for any South African citizen who had gone through this very, very painful experience? The answer is yes, ” she said.
She pleaded with journalists to “allow him to resettle and regain his freedom.”
Militants released a video showing six captives, including Mr. McGown, last month, before a visit to Mali by President Emmanuel Macron of France. Mr. McGown also holds a British passport.
Ms. Nkoana-Mashabane noted that Mr. McGown’s mother, Beverly, died in May, while he was still in captivity. “The government once again extends its deepest condolences to Stephen and his family, as we did when this tragedy befell us, ” she said.
A New York Times tally of ransoms collected by Al Qaeda’s affiliates conducted in 2014 found that the group had taken in at least $125 million, with $66 million paid just in 2013.
Unlike the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, Al Qaeda has tended to see hostages as a product that it can monetize. A minority of its hostages have died while in custody, unlike those of the Islamic State, which both ransoms and regularly kills captives.
Sweden’s foreign minister insisted that the country does not pay ransoms. In an interview with the Swedish broadcaster SVT that aired on June 29, Mr. Gustafsson expressed gratitude.
“A few days ago, I sat alone and isolated in the Sahara, ” he said. “Today I sit here together with my family. I am home. I thank Sweden as a country for what they have done.”
In an interview on South African television, Mr. McGown’s wife, Catherine, said of their reunion, “He looked at me and said, ‘Wow, your hair’s grown!’ I said, ‘Your hair’s longer than mine now!’ ”
