KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) An Italian aid worker kidnapped at
gunpoint in the Afghan capital three weeks ago has been released
and has telephoned her mother to say she is safe and healthy, the
government said Thursday.
Clementina Cantoni, 32, was abducted by armed men on May 16. She
was working for CARE International on a project helping Afghan
widows and their families.
''Yes, she has been released. She is at the Ministry of
Interior. She has spoken with her mother by phone,'' Interior
Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal told The Associated Press.
''I am happy to say that Clementina is well. ... She is in good
health given the 24 day ordeal she went through,'' Interior
Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said later at a news conference.
Jalali said no ransom was paid or other concessions given to
obtain her freedom.
Her release was met with euphoria in Italy. ''She's Free! She's
Free!'' shouted a family friend Marco Formigoni, who was with
Cantoni's parents in Milan when they received the news, the Sky TG
24 television network reported.
The kidnapping was the latest in a spate of violence that has
shaken Afghanistan and raised fears that militants here were
copying the tactics of those in Iraq.
It was not immediately clear when Cantoni would return home.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told state-run TV RAI
television, ''We are working on her return, which will take place
as soon as possible.''
Jalali said combined pressure from the Afghan public, President
Hamid Karzai, tribal leaders and Muslim clerics persuaded the
kidnapper, who he described as a criminal, to release her.
Jalali said negotiators worked ''relentlessly, tried to use
every channel, every effort to win the release of Clementina. We
had 24 days of sleepless nights and we are happy that it paid
off.''
State-run Kabul TV showed footage of Cantoni that it said was
recorded at the Ministry of Interior on Thursday night. On it she
is seen walking with a blue scarf over her head and escorted by a
large group of people down stairs.
Another Ministry of Interior official said Cantoni was set free
in Logar province, just south of Kabul, on Thursday.
Fini, the Italian foreign minister, expressed ''enormous
relief'' over Cantoni's release, according to the ANSA and Apcom
news agencies. Fini made the remarks during a visit to Luxembourg.
An Italian who works with CARE International in Kabul, Beatrice
Spadaccini, said, ''We are very emotional and very happy.''
''We know she is well, we know she called home,'' Spadaccini
said in a telephone interview.
Spadaccini expressed gratitude to the Italian and Afghan
governments, as well as to ''all of Clementina's friends who have
shown their solidarity and their desire to have her back.''
Late last month, a video of Cantoni was released by the
kidnappers and broadcast on local television. On it, she was shown
sitting, with two men standing next to her pointing assault rifles
at her head.
Authorities have said they suspect the kidnapping was the work
of the same criminal gang accused of abducting three U.N. workers
last year. They were released a month later.
Cantoni's abduction follows several attacks on foreigners in the
capital, long regarded as one of the safest places in the country.
On May 7, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an Internet cafe,
killing a U.N. worker from Myanmar. Last month, an American
civilian was abducted but escaped by throwing himself from a moving
car.
