A Cape Town hotelier was kidnapped outside his Sea Point home, and has been missing for more than 48 hours.
|||Cape Town - A Cape Town hotelier has been kidnapped outside his home and by Thursday night had been missing for 48 hours.
The police have been tight-lipped, saying only that “the circumstances surrounding a kidnapping case are being investigated”.
They said that a 60-year-old man had been hijacked outside his residence in Sea Point at about 12.50am on Wednesday.
“The vehicle was recovered in Langa on the same day,” police spokesman Andre Traut reported on Thursday.
“Due to the nature of our investigation into the matter, no further information will be released.”
Police declined to name the man. But his identity was confirmed to the Cape Argus by those close to him. They asked that it be withheld.
The businessman is Ethiopian and owns two hotels in Addis Ababa, the Kings Hotel Sarbet and Kings Hotel Kality.
In Cape Town, he owns the Kings in Cape Hotel in Hout Street, in the central business district between Cape Town Tourism’s offices and Long Street.
The hotel is described as being “fit for kings because we literally treat our customers as kings”.
“Located centrally in the heart of bustling Cape Town, the Kings in Cape Hotel features 14 carefully appointed rooms only for the comfort of our guests.”
The hotel also boasts the Sheba Restaurant, “where we serve International and Ethiopian cuisine and many more varieties”.
Ketema also used to own the most famous nightclub in Addis Ababa, Concorde, before he sold it to a prominent DJ in 2011 for 33 million birr, about R18 million at today’s exchange rate, according to the Capital newspaper in Ethiopia.
A source told the Cape Argus that Ketema had been abducted as he was driving his silver Mercedes-Benz into the parking lot of the block where he has a flat.
Another source described the matter as “sensitive”, at the time of going to press on Thursday night.
Cape Argus