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Broken Heart Drove Egyptian To Kidnap German Tourists
LUXOR, Egypt, March 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A "broken heart" and a German embassy refusal to grant an Egyptian a visa to see his abducted children drove the tour guide, described as a kind and gentle man, to kidnap four Germans.
A misguided attempt at seeing his sons again, in an incident that highlighted the increasing rate of mixed marriages in Egypt, a country with a high number of tourists, ended Thursday morning.
The story of Said Ibrahim Mussa comes only a few months after a similar story broke out in Kuwait when an Italian woman, married to an Egyptian, kidnapped their children to Italy with the help of the Italian embassy in Kuwait. The embassy refused to grant the Egyptian an entry visa to go see his children.
One of Mussa's friends, another tour guide, said he was a "very good man" liked by everyone, who was driven to extreme measures out of desperation that he could not see his two sons.
"It's got nothing to do with terrorism. It was just the problem of his broken heart because the German ambassador in Cairo refused to give him a visa to go and see his children" in Germany, 45-year-old Mohammed Taher said.
"He came to me and said, 'What can I do? I've tried everything. I've called the German ambassador, I've called the embassy, I've called everyone and I want to see my sons,'" Taher quoted his friend of 13 years as saying.
Speaking to AFP after tour guide Mussa surrendered Thursday and freed the four unharmed, Taher said they never expected he would carry out threats to kill his hostages.
His landlord, Mahdi al-Adli, who stayed at home with his family as the drama unfolded upstairs, described Mussa as "a very kind man. He was good to my children. He would give them biscuits, sweets and money."
But Adli, a 47-year-old tour bus driver who was interviewed at the two-story colonial-style building he owns near Karnak Temple on the outskirts of Luxor, also said Mussa had few friends and "kept to himself."
Adli, who spoke as some of his 11 children clustered around him, said the police had given his family the option of leaving their downstairs apartment while the drama unfolded, but that they stayed on because they expected a peaceful end.
"I wasn't scared and decided to stay," said Adli, who had been the kidnapper's landlord since 1991. "I know him. He's a good man and wouldn't hurt anyone."
The landlord said he stayed awake throughout the ordeal that started Monday night, when Mussa seized the four in a bid to trade them for his two sons who were with his estranged German wife, and ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.
After Mussa was taken away, his landlord said he went upstairs and saw the four German hostages sitting on chairs with juice and food laid out in front of them before police escorted them away in a car.
The hostages arrived later in Cairo.
One of the hostages, Marco Wedekind, said on Wednesday over a mobile phone of his kidnapper, that German government reports that Mussa was armed with a pistol and a grenade were true.
He added that all the hostages feared for their lives because Mussa had threatened to shoot them. Egyptian police also said Mussa had threatened to kill them during a phone conversation with German authorities.
Wedekind said they found out they were captives after waking up in chains from a sleep they believe was caused by drugs slipped into drinks offered by Mussa, who had invited them to dinner at his home.
Mussa, who also spoke to AFP late Wednesday, said he had hoped the drama would end peacefully because he did not want to hurt anyone, but wanted most of all to see his children.
He said his wife, whom he met here as a tour guide and married 10 years ago, left Egypt in June last year with their children.
He added that he had a daughter from a previous marriage who was in Egypt. His parents were dead and he had no brothers and sisters, though he had a large extended family.
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