SANAA: The Yemeni government said yesterday that it will not yield to the demands made by tribesmen holding a Dutch couple hostage east of the capital Sanaa since March 31.
“The government firmly rejects yielding to any conditions or dictations,” Information Minister Hassan Al-Lawzi, who also acts as the government’s official spokesman, told reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
“What is sought is the handover of the hostages unhurt,” Al-Lawzi said.
He said authorities “will not meet any of the demands that the kidnappers have made, and they must be brought before justice for the crime they committed.”
Al-Lawzi said the Dutch couple, Jan Hogendoorn, 54, and his wife Heleen Janszen, 49, were “in good condition” and that their safety was the government’s main concern.
Hogendoorn, an expert at a water project funded by the Dutch government in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, and his wife were taken captive by six armed tribesmen as they were driving in a southern Sanaa suburb on March 31.
The kidnappers, members of the Al-Siraj clan, took the couple at gunpoint to the mountainous district of Bani-Dhabian, some 80 km east of Sanaa.
They said they abducted the Dutch couple to put pressure on the authorities to hold accountable two provincial police chiefs in the neighboring province of Marib, allegedly for ordering an attack on members of the Al-Siraj clan at a police checkpoint in April 2008.
They also demanded financial compensation for injuries that four of their fellow clansmen suffered during the checkpoint gunfight.
A senior local official began on Sunday a new round of negotiations after mediation led by tribal leaders foundered after the kidnappers insisted on their demands.
The Interior Ministry has said six tribesmen from Bani-Dhabian linked to the kidnapping of the couple were arrested.
