Somali pirates free U.K. hostage

CBS

(CBS/AP) MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somali pirates on Wednesday freed a British woman kidnapped from a resort island on the Kenyan coast in September, according to a Somali official.

"After efforts today, we have succeeded in the release of the British woman. She just left from Adado airport to Nairobi," Omar Mohammed Diirey, a Somali official from the central region where she was freed, told the Reuters news agency.

Judith Tebbutt was kidnapped by Somali gunmen in September from a beach resort north of the coastal Kenyan city of Lamu. The gunmen killed her husband, David Tebbutt, during the attack.

A Somali pirate named Bile Hussein and Mohammed Hussein, an official with the militia Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama, said Tebbutt was released by pirate captors on Wednesday and would be flown to Nairobi.

The pirates attacked the Tebbutts during a string of assaults and kidnappings in coastal Kenya. Kenyan troops moved into Somalia soon after the spate of attacks.