Kidnapped Briton Malcolm found safe

Briton Malcolm Primrose, who was kidnapped in Indonesia on Tuesday, has been found safe, the Foreign Office said. UK embassy officials are with the 61-year-old oil engineer, who was seized while returning from a mine in the north Sumatran province of Aceh, the BBC reported. Indonesian officials said an extensive hunt for his captors is continuing. A police spokesman said Primrose was found early on Thursday and he is in good health. Earlier, police had said the Briton had made contact via telephone and his kidnappers had asked for a ransom. But the spokesman said no money exchanged hands, and police and the military were still looking for the men who had kidnapped him. Officials there believe the motive for the kidnapping was a grudge against the Indonesian company Primrose worked for, Medco Exploration and Production. He and his driver were returning to their base camp on Tuesday when their car was ambushed by four armed men. The driver was tied up while Primrose was driven away by the abductors. Aceh is a resource rich and strongly Muslim province that has had a history of separatist conflicts and spates of violence, sometimes targeting foreigners. In 2009 there were shootings involving some foreigners but police said there have been no known kidnappings of Westerners in the province in recent years.