NORWEGIAN DIPLOMAT KIDNAPPED AND KILLED OUTRAGE! [Archives:2000/24/Front Page]
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June 12 2000
Yemen was outraged as Gudbrand Stuve, 44, the former second secretary of the Norwegian Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia was killed on Saturday night in a kidnapping attempt in Sanaa by tribesmen from Jowf. Gudbrand along with his wife, 9-year-old son and two daughters were among a team of Norwegians and Danes who started a long journey. As the story goes, Stuve went at around 16:00 to the Ruwaishan car maintenance workshop to collect his jeep in order to secure a safe journey northward to Norway. However, his destiny was that he went out, but never collected his car, and never completed the journey. At around 16:30, while walking towards the workshop he and his son were abducted by 4 armed tribesmen who got him in a Hilux and drove towards Al-Jowf. In the Sanwan Area,80 kms northeast Sanaa, at around 20:00, a crossfire with another vehicle took place leading to the death of one soldier and Stuve. Reports were contradictory in regard to the identity of the other car. Some sources say that it was a military/security vehicle, other sources claim it belonged to tribesmen from Arhab. After the kidnappers unintentionally shot at the other vehicle, killing one of the people on the other vehicle, the tribesmen in the vehicle retaliated by showering the kidnappers with bullets resulting in the instant death of Stuve with a fatal bullet in the head in front of his son’s eyes. On the other hand, Mrs. Stuve requested that she flies back to Norway as soon as possible, hence she along with her two daughters and son left Yemen yesterday night heading for Norway via Frankfurt. A number of prominent figures in the government and members of the Norway and Danish groups. The corpse was left in Sanaa for further investigation. Analysts predict that the conference to be held in Bahrain to lift the travel ban among other issues will be affected by this development. Security forces have surrounded the tribal area (Sinwan/Jowf) of the kidnappers. Complete coverage on Interview Page.
