SANA’A - A Yemeni state security court on Sunday sentenced two tribesmen to 12 years in prison for holding four French tourists hostage last September. Rajih Mohammad Ahmed Hadi, 23, and Ahmed Haidara Laswad, 22, were found guilty of ‘forming an armed gang to abduct tourists on gun point.’The kidnapping occurred in Shabwa province, about 460 kilometres south of the capital Sana’a, by armed clansmen seeking to press Yemeni authorities to release five jailed fellow clan members. Tribal sources said that Yemeni parliamentarians and tribal chieftains secured the hostages’ release after a deal was brokered with the kidnappers.
The two convicts belong to the Al Abdullah clan, the same clan that kidnapped and held a German diplomat, his wife and three sons and four Italian tourists for several days in December 2005.
| Oh. Just a family business then. |