The events leading to Judith Tebbutt's release

Judith Tebbutt was kidnapped from a resort island on the Kenyan coast on September 11 2011 by Somali pirates, who killed her husband David during the attack.

:: September 12 - Kenyan police arrest a man suspected of being involved in the attack on the luxury £278-a-night Kiwayu Safari Village in Lamu, close to the border with Somalia.

:: September 13 - Scotland Yard reveals that a team of Met Police officers has travelled to Kenya to help the authorities investigating the murder and kidnap. The Ministry of Defence refuses to comment on reports that British special forces have also been drafted in.

:: September 14 - Reports emerge that Mrs Tebbutt is being held in the city of Kismayo in southern Somalia by the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.

Prime Minister David Cameron says the Government is doing "everything we possibly can". Foreign Secretary William Hague meets relatives of the Tebbutts.

:: September 19 - Ali Babitu Kololo, 25, who reportedly worked at the Kiwayi Safari Village, appears in court in Kenya charged in connection with the attack. He is said to have claimed he was forced to co-operate with the gang at gunpoint and had voluntarily gone to the police the next day to report the crime.

Reports suggest that Mrs Tebbutt is refusing food and defying her captors, who are continually moving her to different locations.

:: October 1 - The Foreign Office in London advises Britons to stay away from Kenyan coastal areas within 93 miles of the Somali border after a second armed gang attack in a month. In the latest case a French woman is kidnapped from a beach resort in the Lamu archipelago by 10 heavily-armed Somali militants.

:: February 2 2012 - William Hague becomes the first UK Foreign Secretary to visit Somalia since 1992, saying there was now "the beginnings of an opportunity" for the war-torn country to end its status as the world's longest-standing failed state.

During his visit to the capital Mogadishu Mr Hague says the Foreign Office is working with officials in Somalia to secure the release of Mrs Tebbutt.

:: March 21 - It is reported that Mrs Tebbutt has been freed by her captors.