SANAA, 17 September 2003 — Yemeni tribesmen, with the police in hot pursuit, freed an Egyptian Embassy driver yesterday shortly after kidnapping him, the Interior Ministry said. Kidnappers snatched the man from in front of a school in a southern district of the capital Sanaa but released him and escaped when police chased them down a highway, an unnamed ministry official told Yemen’s Saba news agency.
He said police were still searching for the kidnappers, adding that they had made financial demands on an unspecified Egyptian entity.
Officials had earlier said the man was believed to be an Egyptian diplomat. Witnesses said three or four armed tribesmen had kidnapped the man, who was driving a car with diplomatic license plates from the Egyptian mission.
Embassy officials were not immediately available to comment.
Scores of tourists and foreigners working in the country have been kidnapped in recent years, often by disgruntled tribesmen demanding more schools, hospitals or roads, or the release of jailed relatives. Most of the hostages have been released unharmed.
