The ANNOTICO Report

Clementina Cantoni, 32 an Italian aid worker kidnapped at gunpoint in the
Afghan capital three weeks ago has been released and is safe and healthy.

Los Angeles Times
>From Associated Press
June 9, 2005

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 today.

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 this evening. 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 today.

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.

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