A British woman held captive by Somali pirates for almost seven months was released Wednesday after her captors’ ransom demands were met. A pirate identified as Ahmed told Reuters Judith Tebbutt was handed over to authorities in Adado after $800,000 was dropped by air and another $140,000 was paid to brokers.
Tebbutt is healthy and in good spirits. She told Britain’s ITV News her son Ollie was responsible for her release. "I am just happy to be released and I'm looking forward to seeing my son who successfully secured my release. I don't know how he did it, but he did. Which is great," she said.
Gunman kidnapped Tebbutt and killed her husband, David Tebbutt, at a beach resort in Lamu, Kenya last September. They took Tebbutt, who is in her 50s, to Somalia by speedboat.
In a statement released Wednesday, Tebbutt asked for privacy to grieve for her husband. "I hope that while I adjust to my freedom and the devastating loss of my husband, that I and my family will be allowed space, time and most of all privacy, to come to terms with the events of the last six months," she said.
Somali Information Minister H.E. Abdulkadir Hussein said the government “will assist in any way it can in the capture and the arrest of the kidnappers who murdered her husband and kept her hostage since September 2011.”
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