KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) An Italian aid worker held hostage for
more than three weeks in Afghanistan has been released in good
health, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
Clementina Cantoni, 32, was safely at the Interior Ministry and
has spoken to her mother by telephone, Interior Ministry spokesman
Latfullah Mashal told The Associated Press.
Cantoni ''is in good health, given the 24-day ordeal she went
through,'' he said later at a news conference.
No ransom was paid and no concessions were given to her
kidnappers, he said.
Combined pressure from the Afghan public, President Hamid
Karzai, tribal leaders and Muslim clerics helped win her release,
Mashal said.
Another ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said Cantoni was set free in Logar province, just south of Kabul,
where police picked her up.
Cantoni was abducted by armed men May 16 as she was being driven
to her home in the capital, Kabul, where she was working for CARE
International on a project helping Afghan widows and their
families.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini expressed ''enormous
relief'' over Cantoni's release, according to the ANSA and Apcom
news agencies. Fini made the remarks during a visit to Luxembourg.
In Milan, family friend Marco Formigoni, who was with Cantoni's
parents when they received the news, screamed ''She's free! She's
free!'' according to Sky TG 24.
''We are very emotional and very happy,'' added Beatrice
Spadaccini, an Italian who works with CARE International in Kabul.
''We know she is well, we know she called home.''
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.''
Afghan officials had been optimistic about her release in recent
days.
Last month, a video of Cantoni was broadcast on local
television. On it, she was shown sitting as two men next to her
pointed assault rifles at her head.
