Kidnap victim saved at 11th hour
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Your support makes all the difference.A kidnap victim was minutes from being murdered when armed police with stun grenades stormed the hotel room where he was being held, detectives said yesterday.
A kidnap victim was minutes from being murdered when armed police with stun grenades stormed the hotel room where he was being held, detectives said yesterday.
The kidnappers had told the unnamed 21-year-old computer expert they were going to burn him alive and bury his remains under concrete after a ransom deadline passed.
Minutes later, officers burst through the door of the Little Silver Country Hotel in Tenterden, near Ashford, Kent. The man, who had been grabbed 24 hours earlier in west London, was freed, unharmed but deeply traumatised, said officers. Undercover police had checked into the hotel, and their surveillance operation is believed to have triggered the raid.
The victim was grabbed at 4pm on Thursday and bundled into a car in Bayswater, gagged with tape and driven to the West Country and back.
The man - who police say comes from a family neither well-known nor wealthy was forced to phone relatives early on Friday and a "substantial" cash ransom was demanded.
Police were informed and the gang was traced to the hotel. Det Supt John Shatford, of the Metropolitan Police, who led the rescue that involved 200 officers, said: "The victim had been told by kidnappers that they were going to kill him after a 5pm deadline on Friday.
"They discussed with each other how they were going to burn him and bury him and cover him in concrete. At that time they said they were going to do it in the next 10 minutes."
Two men aged 22 and 30 werebeing questioned at a west London police station. Others are being hunted.
The hotel owner Oliver Johnston, 48, said he had been suspicious when one man, young and "scruffily dressed", had checked into the genteel 10-room hotel on Friday, paying the £85 tariff in cash.
Mr Johnston said the room door frame had been badly cracked and the stun grenade had burnt a hole in the carpet.
"It could have been a lot worse," he said. "We had a wedding ceremony going on that afternoon, but luckily all the guests had gone by the time the police arrived," he said. "There were other guests but I rang them and told them to stay in their rooms while the raid was going on. We sent everyone a bottle of wine afterwards and they didn't seem to mind."
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