Sunday, March 25, 2012

'How Judith Tebbutt coped, I'll never know' - by fellow kidnap victim

As kidnapped British holidaymaker Judith Tebbutt returns home from Somalia, ex-hostage Colin Freeman gives an insight into her ordeal.

Fortitude in captivity: hostage victim Judith Tebbutt, who was held hostage alone for six months

OFFICIALLY, of course, there is no such thing as a price on human life. Should you be kidnapped by Somali pirates, though, the going rate for a Westerner is roughly $1.3 million, preferably in bricks of $100 bills.

That is the hefty ransom sum thought to have been paid for Briton Judith Tebbutt, the 57-year-old social worker released from captivity last week after a violent abduction six months ago in which her husband was killed.

Yet watching the brief interview she gave as she was handed over on Wednesday, it struck me that her family certainly got value for money, for the cash has bought them back what seems to be a remarkably strong woman.

Despite looking somewhat gaunt, Mrs Tebbutt appeared astonishingly composed, given that she had suffered an ordeal appalling even by kidnapping standards.

Talking in calm, measured tones, she revealed how it was not until a fortnight into her captivity that she learned that her husband David, 58, an executive at publishers Faber and Faber, had been shot by her captors during the kidnapping at a resort in northern Kenya.

Source: The Telegraph

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