Former German diplomat Juergen Chrobog and his family, who were kidnapped for three days in Yemen by rural tribes, returned to Germany on Sunday aboard a German air force plane.

After getting off the air force Challenger executive jet sent to retrieve them, Chrobog, former state secretary and ambassador to Washington, said that he was glad to be home.

He told the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel that he was invited to Yemen by Yemeni Foreign Ministry in Sana'a but paid his own way, denying that his holiday in the Arabian peninsula country had been careless.

The Yemenis had planned his itinerary, otherwise, he would " actually wanted to go somewhere completely different", he said.

Chrobog and his wife and three adult sons were kidnapped Wednesday by disgruntled Yemeni tribes in the east of the country and released three days later after a negotiated settlement.

He told reporters that he and his family had never felt their lives were under threat.

From the very beginning of the abduction, "We realized that there were neither political nor terrorist motivations" behind the kidnapping, said Chrobog, who was formerly an expert in dealing with the release of German hostages in foreign countries.

He said he would neither recommend nor warn against travel to Yemen, as that was the duty of the Foreign Office.

Chrobog stressed the experience would not affect his family's love for Yemen, which he described as "an incredibly beautiful country to travel through".

Source: Xinhua