A British woman abducted in Kenya is reportedly being held in the city of Kismayo in southern Somalia by the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.
According to news agency the Somali Report, Judith Tebbutt was taken to Kismayo in Somalia's Lower Juba region on Monday and will be presented to the media by militants at a press conference.
Mrs Tebbutt, 56, was snatched from the remote Kiwayu Safari Village, close to the Kenyan border with Somalia, by a gang who killed her 58-year-old husband David in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Mrs Tebbutt, believed to be deaf and to wear a double hearing aid, is said to have been bundled into a boat which sped away from the isolated island resort.
Police in Kenya are reported to have arrested a man suspected of being involved in Mr Tebbutt's murder and the kidnap of his widow.
A team of Metropolitan Police officers travelled to Kenya on Tuesday to help local authorities with their investigations.
A Met spokeswoman said the UK officers would also be helping in the repatriation of Mr Tebbutt's body.
She said: 'The officers have travelled at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and with agreement of the Kenyan authorities.'
The Foreign Office said a team has been deployed to the area from the High Commission in Nairobi and called for those involved in the kidnapping to 'show compassion'.
Kiwayu Safari Village issued a statement on Tuesday saying everyone at the resort was 'devastated' by what had happened.
It said they are 'offering every assistance' they can to help with the investigation.
The Tebbutts, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, had arrived after visiting the Masai Mara game reserve and were the resort's only guests.
Consisting of 18 luxury cottages spread along a private beach, the resort is popular with backpackers and celebrities including artist Tracey Emin and actress Imelda Staunton.
The Foreign Office is warning against 'all but essential travel to within 30km of Kenya's border with Somalia'.
It also warns against piracy, referring to the kidnapping of two British nationals, Paul and Rachel Chandler, in October 2009 as they sailed from the Seychelles to Tanzania.
The retired couple, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, spent 388 days in captivity until they were released last November after a ransom of up to a million US dollars (£620,000) was paid.
Kidnap-for-ransom consultant Ben Lopez has said it is a 'waiting game' to see what the gang wants with Mrs Tebbutt. Hostage negotiator Mr Lopez, who works for Compass Risk Management, which specialises in the prevention and mitigation of incidents of kidnap, said it could be days before the kidnappers get in touch.
The Tebbutts' son Oliver is reported to be 'devastated' and tributes have poured in for his father, who worked for publisher Faber & Faber.
David Hicks, chief executive of the Book Trade Charity, who met Mr Tebbutt more than 10 years ago, said: 'He was a lovely chap, he was on the grants committee. He was a very caring person and very concerned about the people that we were supporting financially'
It was claimed last night that Islamic extremists were tipped off about the British tourist kidnapped in Kenya by a handyman who had worked at their resort.
He told police he alerted the radicals that Mr and Mrs Tebbut were staying at the resort near the Somali border to save his own skin.
Police say the suspect, Ali Babitu, fell under the spell of Al Shabaab, which is waging an insurgency against the Western-backed Somali government.
Detectives believe the raid was an ‘inside job’ and arrested Babitu, who has admitted helping the kidnappers.
The Kenyan handyman used to work at the Kiwayu Safari Village, where the Tebbutts were staying, before he lost his job.
He is accused of directing the bandits to their prey – but he claims he was a hostage himself and was held at gunpoint.
As Scotland Yard detectives joined the hunt for Mrs Tebbutt, Kenyan detectives said they were still questioning Babitu, who is in his 30s, after he handed himself in.
A police source said: ‘The man contacted the police and said he had been involved in the incident. He said he was taken captive by the bandits and spent several hours as a hostage.
‘They apparently knew he had worked at the hotel, and waited until dark before forcing him to lead him into the grounds.
'He has claimed they let him go as they entered the couple’s cottage, and he ran away into the night.’
The officer added: ‘Although he claims to be a victim he is being treated as a suspect. The story could be right but he is being interrogated by detectives to test whether he is telling the truth.’
The Tebbutts, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, were attacked on Saturday night, the first night of their stay at the resort, a remote spot 18 miles from the Somali border, after a week on safari in the Masi Mara.
Mr Tebbutt, 58, who was finance director of publishers Faber and Faber, was executed with a single gunshot when raiders struck at their grass-woven hut.
Friends fear Mrs Tebbutt, who is deaf, will be going through hell after seeing her husband of 26 years murdered, and not being able to communicate with her tormentors once the batteries of her hearing aid run out.
Yesterday, their only child Oliver, 25, a furniture designer who lives in Bideford, Devon, was at their Hertfordshire home with two police officers. He is ‘devastated’ by what has happened to his parents.
Mrs Tebbutt, a counsellor at a rehabilitation centre, was initially held seven miles from the Kenyan border and then in the port city of Marka, a heartland of Al Shabaab – 45-miles south west of the Somali capital Mogadishu – after being taken by boat by up to six bandits.
She is said to have been moved twice since then.
No ransom demand has been received – and no trace found in Kenya of Mrs Tebbutt despite a massive air, sea and land search and the help of UK Special Forces.
A team of Scotland Yard officers arrived in Kenya yesterday to assist the investigation, flying into Nairobi and chartering a private plane to Kiwayu.
A Kenyan police source claimed the Yard officers had taken effective control of the three day-old investigation.
It emerged last night that the Tebbutts first met in Africa.
Family members said the couple ‘loved’ East Africa and had regularly travelled to the continent as they were fascinated by the safari parks.
Mrs Tebbutt moved to Zambia with her first husband, Robert Lester, in the late 1970s, when he got a job as an electrical engineer at a copper mine.
After the marriage broke down in the 1980s, she met Mr Tebbutt, who was working at the mine as an accountant.
