Interview With Alicia Kalhammer, Pepe Tena
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to head to Kenya now and hear more from that couple that was held for nearly two days for questioning in the deadly bombing attack of a hotel in Mombasa, in which three Israelis were killed and 10 Kenyans were killed. We heard a little bit from that couple earlier, as CNN's Sheila MacVicar conducted that interview shortly after they were released. Sheila standing by now live for us in Mombasa. Sheila, can you hear me?</s>SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I can indeed. I have just come back from talking with Alicia Kalhammer and her husband, Pepe Tena. Now, Alicia is an American passport holder. Her husband, Pepe, is a Spanish national. They've both been living in the United States where they've been working in Florida, and they've been on what was a kind of nostalgia tour until Thursday. They were staying at a hotel down the beach. It's sort of -- not very far as the crow flies, but in terms of driving distance, quite a way down the beach from the Paradise Hotel. They didn't even hear the bomb blasts, as a matter of fact. And it was when they decided that they really needed to get out of that hotel, there were a lot of Israelis staying there, that that's when things began to go wrong for them. They weren't allowed to leave the hotel, and they ended up in Kenyan police custody for more than 48 hours, suspects in the Thursday attack. This interview with them, I asked them if there was any point where they feared that they might be made scapegoats.</s>MACVICAR: Was there ever a time that you worried that you might be held as scapegoats?</s>ALICIA KALHAMMER, QUESTIONED IN KENYA BOMB ATTACK: Yes, sure, from day one, from minute one. We knew that because we knew we had no involvement whatsoever. And, you know, when we finally were taken to the police station and held there, we thought, you know, these people could put us in a jail and throw away the key and no one would know that we were hear, absolutely no one. And definitely thought that we were scapegoats, and, you know?</s>PEPE TENA, QUESTIONED IN KENYA BOMB ATTACK: The next day when we were getting interrogated, I was in another room while they were interrogating her. And I was reading the paper. They gave me a paper, and you know, it looked really good on paper. I mean, I don't know if that's official statements or not. It's probably just the press talking. But they were saying like 15 or 30 minutes after the bomb, they arrested two suspects coming out of a hotel rapidly. And, you know, I mean, needless to say that wasn't the case, but it looked good. And I mean, the first 20 hours probably until we actually knew that we got a hold of someone were the most probably stressful and fearful hours of our lives. I mean, it was just...</s>KALHAMMER: Total adrenaline. We couldn't eat anything that they tried to bring to us. I mean, we took it, but we couldn't eat it. And just -- and the entire time. But in terms of resiliency, when you're in a situation like that, you just say, you know, there's a light at the end of this tunnel. There has to be, because truth will prevail. That's all there is to it.</s>MACVICAR: Now, they were held in the Kenyan police station in the old port of the Port Authority prison of Mombasa. Now, while they were there, Alicia and Pepe were able to buy a phone card for a Kenyan guard and get him to make a phone call for them to a friend in Nairobi. That friend was able to get a hold of the Marine on duty at the U.S. embassy on Thanksgiving Day, and that was how the U.S. embassy found out that they were here and held, and that was when wheels began to move in motion. Alicia talked about the moment when the regional security officer arrived down here in Mombasa and walked into the prison, the police station where they were being held. She said it was like the Cavalry had come. It was just a great, great moment, and that was the moment when they believed that everything would be all right and they would be released.</s>CALLAWAY: Had to be some helpless moments there for them. Alicia used to live there? Is that right? Did I understand you right, Sheila?</s>MACVICAR: Well, one of the reasons why Alicia and Pepe did so well, really kept their cool, knew what to do, sort of were very focused was because Alicia is the daughter of two former U.S. diplomats. She had lived here in Kenya as a child. She knew Kenyans. She had lived all over the world, as had Pepe. They had a good sense of what it was like being in someone else's country and someone else's culture. And they had a really good sense of what they needed to do and how they needed to do it in order to get out of the mess that they found themselves in. Of course, that first step was finding a friend to make a phone call to the U.S. embassy in Nairobi for them on Thanksgiving Day.</s>CALLAWAY: Yes, they were fortunate to find that friend. Sheila MacVicar, great job, thank you so much.