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New Zealand Herald: New Zealanders kidnapped in Nigeria now safe at home

5:00AM Sunday July 15, 2007
By Michelle Coursey

The two New Zealand men kidnapped in Nigeria for a week arrived home to relieved family in Wellington yesterday.

New Plymouth resident Bruce Klenner, 47, and Brent Goddard, 49, of Wellington, were released in the Niger Delta last Wednesday.

Klenner’s wife Linda confirmed her husband was home safe and well.

“He just wants to tell everybody he’s fine and pleased to be home. Now we’re going to have a bit of time together… But I think the public need to know, because they have given us so much support.”

She said they had tried to keep the men’s arrival quiet because of their ordeal.

Sounding exhausted, she told the Herald on Sunday it was an emotional reunion and she was now hoping for a whole night’s sleep.

She said the “pit crew” of people who had been helping her over the past two weeks were coming around for dinner last night, and then Klenner needed to spend some time with his teenage daughters.

Meanwhile, Gilly Sannazzaro and partner Brent Goddard arrived at their Porirua home in a limousine, but she quickly shepherded him indoors.

“I’m ecstatic…so excited and happy to have him back,” she said, before disappearing inside.

NZPA has reported that Goddard told her not to talk to the media because he wanted to sell his story.

The men and three others were abducted by gunmen from a Shell Oil drilling rig in the Niger Delta they were working on.

Employed by American company Lone Star Drilling, neither man was harmed during the ordeal. It is not known whether Shell paid a ransom for their release.

The New Zealanders and the other three hostages, from Australia, Lebanon and Venezuela, were reportedly taken to see the Nigerian State Governor, Timipre Silva, after their release in Yenagoa.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10451598

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