At the request of the Government of Canada, Google repeatedly took down grisly YouTube videos showing the beheading of a Canadian in the Philippines, iPolitics has learned.

Global Affairs Canada made five requests to Google to delete videos posted on YouTube by the Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf that the department said violated YouTube’s terms of use — two on May 2 and one each on May 15, May 22 and June 10.

Some of the videos show the beheading of John Ridsdel, a 68-year-old Calgary businessman, on April 25, 2016, eight months after the terrorist group stormed a resort in the Philippines in September 2015. He was taken hostage with fellow Calgarian Robert Hall, 50, and two others, a Filipino woman and a Norwegian man. The other videos showed Abu Sayyaf threatening Hall’s life.

Hall was beheaded by the group in June while the other two hostages were released.

The requests were detailed in documents tabled in Parliament on Dec. 9, and show the first request on May 2 was made by Alexandre Asselin, Global Affairs’ deputy director of digital innovation and engagement. The four subsequent requests were made by a Global Affairs official named Dick Dubé.

While the documents do not say what the material was or how it violated YouTube’s terms of use, iPolitics has confirmed with multiple sources that the videos in question were those showing the death of Ridsdel and the threats to Hall.

“Our main concern is to protect the interests of Canadian hostages and to avoid adding to the suffering of their families,” Joseph Pickerill, director of communications for Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, wrote in an email.

“Removal of this content also deprives terrorists of a platform to disseminate propaganda and hostage demands.”

Abu Sayyaf is listed as a terrorist group by the government and has pledged allegiance to ISIS.

The group issued a ransom demand of millions of dollars — the exact amount varied over months of negotiations —for each hostage with an April 25, 2016 deadline, threatening to kill the hostages if the demand went unmet.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to pay the ransom, saying doing so would only encourage more terrorists to seize Canadians. The group beheaded Ridsdel on April 25.

Abu Sayyaf posted a video of Ridsdel’s beheading on its social media accounts the morning of May 3, where it was quickly picked up in international media and began circulating online — eventually ending up on YouTube.

It’s not clear at this point whether there may be a time zone discrepancy leading to the first two requests being lodged with YouTube on May 2, or whether the government had advance notice that the video posting was imminent.

The May 15 request came two days after Abu Sayyaf posted another video threatening to behead Hall if their ransom demands were refused.

Hall was beheaded on June 13, and a video was posted online the same day. There’s no evidence in the documents that the government requested the removal of that video from YouTube.

Both videos remain available on other websites.

Both families have spoken out about their struggles, most recently in a CBC News feature in which they expressed their frustration at being left in the dark as the deadline drew nearer.

“There really seemed to be a sort of lack of concern bordering really close to apathy on the government’s part,” says Robert Hall’s sister Bonice Thomas in the feature. “Having made that statement, that there will be no ransom — and I think prematurely making that statement — it just seemed to be, ‘We’ve said our piece and we’re done.’” Former Ontario premier Bob Rae, a longtime friend of Ridsdel, also spoke about the challenges faced during negotiations for the hostages’ release. He praised the hard work the families put in trying to find a solution during the excruciating process but did not criticize the decision not to pay the ransoms. “Whether things could have been done differently, it’s too soon for that to be said. Certainly the family did everything they could to try to reach a solution,” said Rae in an interview with CBC News at the time. In a year-end press conference at the National Press Theatre on Monday, Trudeau reflected on the hostage episode, calling it the darkest moment of his year. “If I had to pick a low point for me personally last year, it was the deaths of two Canadians by the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines, which was something that obviously was personally difficult for me as I had the responsibility for directing and articulating the Canadian position but also the opportunity and the responsibility to speak with their families,” he said. “I think people understand, and the Canadians I’ve spoken with across the country in the months following certainly understand that any other position would not just provide a source of significant funds to violent terrorists intent on causing more harm and taking more lives but it would also endanger further the lives of any Canadian citizen who works, travels or lives outside of our borders.”

While the Canadian government has consistently denied paying ransoms in the past, there is no shortage of evidence to suggest paying ransoms can sometimes result in hostages being freed. Some ally countries — including France, Germany, Italy and Spain — do pay ransoms for their citizens despite a 2013 G8 pledge by Western countries not to do so.

Most notably, the release of kidnapped diplomat Robert Fowler in 2009 came after al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb received $1.1 million from a foreign government, a 2011 Wikileaks posting suggested.

The release of Amanda Lindhout, held hostage for close to a year in Somalia between 2008 and 2009, and her fellow Australian captive was facilitated by the exchange of $250,000 by the Canadian and Australian government.

The Norwegian man, Kjartan Sekkingstad, taken hostage along with Ridsdel and Hall was released in September 2016 following the payment of a 30 million peso ($630,000) ransom, while the Filipino woman was released shortly after the Philippines new president Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016.

RCMP have launched an extraterritorial investigation into the murders but the current state of that investigation is not clear.