A SCOTS oil worker kidnapped in Nigeria has returned home to his family.
Alan Preston, 50, from Pilton, Edinburgh, was last night recovering at home still traumatised from his ordeal in the African country.
Friends said that he was “still very distressed” by his abduction which started with a shoot-out that left his guard dead and another badly injured.
Despite his condition he was “glad to be back home”, the friend added.
Mr Preston was working as an employee of Nigerian engineering firm Adamac Industries and was taken hostage in the Niger Delta on April 5.
He was kidnapped from a hotel bar by a group of armed men who abducted him and killed his guard at the hotel on the East-West Road in Port Harcourt.
Sources in Nigeria said his abductors had casually ordered drinks at the bar before snatching Mr Preston.
They shot dead one escort and badly injured another.
Earlier this week the Foreign Office confirmed Mr Preston was “safe” and began his repatriation.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are in close contact with his family.”
More than 200 foreign workers have been abducted in the Niger Delta in the past three years, most released after ransom has been paid.
It was not known if any ransom was used to secure Mr Preston’s release who was understood to have arrived back in Edinburgh on Wednesday night.
