Mary Quin was an executive at Xerox Corp. when she was taken hostage while sightseeing in Yemen in 1998. She said there were about 18 local militants involved in the kidnapping. Quin was able to wrestle the gun away from one of the terrorists and escape. During a shoot-out between the kidnappers and the Yemen army, four of the tourists Quin was traveling with were killed, two were wounded. In 2014 in New York, Quin appeared as a witness in the trial of Egyptian radical cleric Abu Hamza. In January 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He is serving his sentence at ADX Florence in Colorado*.
Mary Quin, the New Zealand-born Harvard Business School educated CEO, recounts her story of survival on 60 Minutes which airs Sundays at 7pm on CBS. She also wrote about her terrifying experience in Kidnapped In Yemen: One Woman’s Amazing Escape from Terrorist Captivity.
* Other inmates at ADX include Al-Qaeda operatives Zacarias Moussaoui, who helped plan the 9/11 attacks, Richard Reid aka the Shoe Bomber and Umar Abdulmutallab aka the Underwear Bomber. Domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski aka the Unabomber is serving his 8 life setntences there as well as Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bomber.
