Kidnappers holding three Germans in Yemen have made a new demand, asking for the release of a Yemeni cleric jailed in the United States on terrorism charges, tribal mediators said Thursday. The mediators said the kidnappers' leader Sheik Abed Rabbo Saleh Al-Tam told them he now also wants the release of Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad. Al-Moayad was sentenced in 2005 in New York to 75 years in prison for supporting terrorism. But in October, an appeals court overturned his conviction and ordered a retrial because of inflammatory testimony about unrelated terrorism cases in his first trial. It was not immediately clear how the kidnappers expected to influence the cleric's release in the United States from their stronghold in Yemen. The demand comes on top of previous demands by Sheik Al-Tam for the release of his son and brother from Yemeni jails. The three Germans - an aid worker based in Yemen and her visiting mother and father - were snatched Monday by Bani Dhabyan tribesmen in Dhamar province, about 65 miles (100 kilometers) south of the capital, San'a. The mediators, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of government retribution, said they met Al-Tam Wednesday to persuade him to release the hostages. Police have arrested some 115 men over the past few days from the Bani Dhabyan tribe, according to Brigadier Mohammed Saleh Tureik, chief of San'a security.
