Cairo - A rebel group in Yemen which denies any role in recent abductions there has charged via a statement on their website that government efforts to save the hostages are a sham. The rebels led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi alleged that two suspects had been tortured by Yemen's political security forces into uttering a false claim that the rebels were to blame for the June 12 abduction of nine westerners, of whom three were then murdered.
Al-Houthi's Shiite rebels, who are based in Saada province, put the statement online Thursday evening.
They commented that the likelihood of finding the German family of five and a British engineer were low, because the abductors would fear capture. No one has claimed responsibility for the crime.
The rebels also quoted local eyewitnesses saying that there had never been a systematic search of the region where the westerners were abducted or of the valley where the bodies of three murdered women were found.
