PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE

Saturday, November 29, 1997

Family joyous over son's freedom

CORPUS CHRISTI (AP) - Thanksgiving Day may be over, but Laverne Carpenter of Alice is still counting her blessings.

She learned Thursday that her son, kidnapped in the Middle East nearly a month ago at an oil company's headquarters, had been released.

"I've just been crying for the last 30 minutes - tears of joy, you'd call it," she told the <I>Corpus Christi Caller-Times<I> Thursday afternoon. "I just thank God our prayers were answered."

Steve Carpenter, the executive director of the Yemen-based Hashedi Contracting and Oil Co., was abducted by six armed Yemeni tribesmen Oct. 30 as he walked into his company's headquarters in San'a, the nation's capital.

He was freed by members of the Bakeel tribe and was back in San'a by the end of the day Thursday, security sources said. Carpenter, 47, spent his childhood in Alice and Houston and attended Texas A&I University in Kingsville.

Ms. Carpenter got a call Thanksgiving Day from her son's wife, Natalia.

"She said, 'Mom, there's someone here who wants to talk to you,' " Ms. Carpenter said. "Those were beautiful words."

The next voice she heard was that of her son.

Security sources also said that five other Westerners - an American, two Italians and two others of unknown nationalities - kidnapped during the past two days were freed. The Italian Embassy in Yemen, however, dismissed that report.

An Italian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the embassy had no information that any Westerners had been kidnapped during the past few days.

In exchange for Carpenter's release, the Bakeel tribe demanded freedom for an unspecified number of tribe members jailed for various crimes, the Caller-Times reported. They also wanted the government to resume monthly subsidies for each of the tribe's 200 members. The subsidies, the equivalent of about $20 each, were cut in July under economic reforms. It was not immediately clear if Yemen met those demands to win Carpenter's release Thursday.

Large swaths of land in Yemen are ruled by armed tribesmen, who often kidnap foreigners to demand money or press for concessions from the government. The victims are seldom harmed. At least 30 tourists were abducted in 1997. All were released.Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend: