An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Kid­napped busi­ness­man Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu was re­leased by his ab­duc­tors in the ear­ly hours yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, the fate of his wife Clari­bel re­mained un­known up to last night and it was be­lieved she was still in the hands of the men who ab­duct­ed the cou­ple.

While rel­a­tives of the kid­napped cou­ple were thank­ful for Der­rick’s re­lease yes­ter­day, they thus con­tin­ued to pray for his wife’s safe re­lease.

Tardieu, 70, was re­port­ed­ly re­leased along the North Coast around 1 am and was picked up by po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cial­ist units soon af­ter­wards.

Con­fir­ma­tion of Tardieu’s safe re­turn came via a re­lease from at­tor­ney Leslie-Ann Lucky-Sama­roo, who is act­ing on be­half of the fam­i­ly.

The state­ment read, “The fam­i­ly of Der­rick Tardieu wish­es to share that their loved one Der­rick has been re­leased. He is at present seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion and care and needs time to re­cov­er from his or­deal. His fam­i­ly ap­pre­ci­ates the kind words, sup­port and es­pe­cial­ly prayers through­out this dif­fi­cult time. The fam­i­ly humbly asks that you re­spect their pri­va­cy and the pri­va­cy of their loved one as they re­cov­er.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that Clari­bel, 47, re­mained in the hands of the kid­nap­pers up to 7 pm as po­lice were con­duct­ing ex­er­cis­es in the re­gion where Der­rick was dropped off.

A US$2.5 mil­lion ran­som had been de­mand­ed for the re­turn of the cou­ple, af­ter they were snatched from their home at Blanchette Bay, Monos Is­land, on De­cem­ber 6.

The ran­som de­mand was lat­er re­duced by their ab­duc­tors.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials yes­ter­day de­clined to con­firm just how much mon­ey had been paid for their safe re­lease, ex­cept to say, “A ran­som was paid.”

The cou­ple was re­port­ed­ly snatched by per­sons be­lieved to be Colom­bians. Af­ter they were snatched, Tardieu, with his wife at his side, was forced to record a video un­der duress with a gun point­ed at his head and a grenade at his chest. The video was sub­se­quent­ly sent to rel­a­tives.

Guardian Me­dia’s ef­forts to reach Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for a com­ment on the op­er­a­tion were un­suc­cess­ful last evening.