Hostage released in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- 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.

"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.