Kenneth White Kidnappers Still Unknown Al-Monqidh Accused [Archives:2000/06/Front Page]

Differences have been aggravating between both the People’s General Congress and the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) parties, after officials had accused Al-Islah of being involved in kidnapping the American Kenneth White from his office in the area of Safer, Ma’reb, on January 26, 2000.
Local and foreign political sources state that the alliance between the two parties is heading for a divorce.
Preparations and arrangements for the coming Parliamentary elections are under way and each of the two parties is seeking to gain some early points, even if at the expense of the other. Government sources insist on pointing the finger at Al-Monqidh Company, which is an Islah company, as being behind the kidnapping of Kenneth White, with a view towards exercising pressure on the government to pay compensations amounting to US $ 400 Million.
Company owners say the sum was lost when the government expropriated a large area of a land in Aden they claim to have purchased. A Public Property Court issued a verdict nullifying the ownership documents and condemning senior officials in the company and employees in the Government’s Office of Government Property of forgery and sentenced all of them to imprisonment.
Yemen Times asked Mr Mohammed Qahtan, Chairman of the Political Department of the Islah on the subject, to which he said that the Islah condemned the government’s continued approach of politicizing criminal offenses, seeing this as cover for the government’s inability to protect the citizens from the rising crimes in the country. He further said that the confusion in the performance of the government in dealing with the kidnapping incident revealed this incompetence, He also made it clear that the authorities, in the beginning, accused foreign parties; then afterwards they accused the Socialist party. Now they are pointing their fingers at the Islah.
Mr Qahtan reiterated his party’s stance of rejecting all forms of violence and terrorism, demanding the Government find and arrest White’s kidnappers and bring them to justice regardless of their political affiliation or identity. But the question remains, who and where are they?
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