ITALIAN FREES HIMSELF AFTER KIDNAPPING IN NIGERIA
15 December 2011
(AGI) Abuja - An Italian technician was kidnapped while working on the construction of a road in Nigeria's main oil region.
Carmelo Stella, a native of Messina province, was kidnapped on the morning of Friday 9 December and managed to free himself just 24 hours later, according to local police and family members. Nigerian police have arrested four people for the kidnapping. Stella is the manager of a project that the Moreno Group, an Italo-Nigerian construction company, is carrying out in the confederate state of Bayelsa in the southern Niger Delta region. "Everything was resolved on the afternoon of the 10th, when my brother managed to free himself," Carmelo's brother Mario Stella, a company shareholder, told AGI. The family of the kidna pped man were immediately contacted by the kidnappers who demanded a ransom of 700 thousand dollars. However, the mediator in the talks was intercepted by the Nigerian police and forced to contact his accomplices to say that the money had been paid and that they could free the hostage. When one of the kidnappers went by boat to release the kidnapped man, "My brother succeeded in pushing the pilot into the water and to intercept a passing speed boat that escorted him to a safe place. From there he contacted us, saying exactly where to pick him up." Over subsequent days the police continued their operation and arrested four kidnappers. According to what Carmelo Stella told his brother, "the group included at least thirteen people, evidently familiar and specialised in these sorts of operations."
No comments:
Post a Comment