The Saudi embassy in Sana'a working with local officials have ended the ordeal of a Saudi man who was kidnapped and held for ransom for eight days in Yemen. The 28-year-old unnamed Saudi, Al-Watan newspaper reported Monday, was visiting his Yemeni wife by whom he has two children when he was stopped by armed individuals who took him to a remote mountainous area. There, the man said, he was beaten and tortured for five days, his captures branding his hands with hot metal, before his abductors demanded SR20,000 in ransom money. A call was made to the man's family in the Kingdom and they arranged a transfer of half the amount to his account. “They took me to the nearest ATM machine and each day I took out the maximum amount permitted of three thousand riyals, but after three days they started to get worried that the Yemeni authorities were closing in on them and so they left me near Aden and I went to the consulate,” the man told Al-Watan. Saudi ambassador in Yemen Ali Al-Hamdan said the embassy had received a call from the man's family explaining the situation and immediately set to work with Yemeni authorities to locate him and his abductors. “We told the family not to pay any more ransom money,” Al-Hamdan said. “When the officials began to trace the kidnappers they abandoned the man and fled, but officers managed to arrest them. Investigations are ongoing.” The man's marriage to his Yemeni wife, Al-Watan said, had not been officially certified in the Kingdom and the Saudi embassy urged him to have the union properly recognized as soon as possible. __
