Government ‘doing all it can’ to end British woman’s kidnap ordeal

David Cameron said the government was doing “everything we possibly can” to resolve the kidnapping of a British tourist in Kenya.

The Prime Minister said the kidnap of Judith Tebbutt, 56, and the murder of her husband David, 58, while on holiday was “tragic”. He said he had chaired a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee about the case on Tuesday, adding that Foreign Secretary William Hague had met relatives of the Tebbutts yesterday.

Mrs Tebbutt was snatched from the remote Kiwayu Safari Village, close to the Kenyan border with Somalia, by a gang who killed Mr Tebbutt in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Earlier yesterday it was reported that Somalia’s Islamist militant group al-Shabaab said it was not behind the kidnapping.

A senior al-Shabaab official is reported to have said: “Al-Shabaab has not abducted any Briton from Kenya. We believe bandits carried out the attack.”

The Prime Minister told the Commons: “I chaired a meeting of Cobra about this issue … to make sure we are co-ordinating everything the government does. We are doing everything we possibly can on this desperately tragic case.”

The retired couple’s only son, Oliver, is said to be “devastated”.

The government’s policy is not to pay ransoms to kidnappers.

Police in Kenya are reported to have arrested a man suspected of being involved.

The Tebbutts, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, had arrived at the Kiwayu Safari Village after visiting the Masai Mara game reserve and were the resort’s only guests.