Sahara tourists jailed after disappearance

Five German tourists who “gave their guide the slip” in the Sahara desert before stealing relics from a heritage site have been jailed for three months. As reported, the disappearance of the group, who were aged between 32 and 53, caused a huge manhunt amid fears they had been kidnapped. But several days later, the group was discovered with some 130 artefacts taken from the Tassili National Park, a heritage site near the border between Algeria and Niger. According to the BBC News website, the court, in the town of Djanet, fined the group some 35.2 million dinars – the equivalent of nearly USD500,000 – and jailing them for three months. The website reports that the Tassili National Park, a Unesco world heritage site, contains “one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world”. Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd