Posted By: Judy Smith

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press WriterFri Nov 3, 9:39 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Italian photographer kidnapped in Afghanistan last month was freed Friday and is in good health, Italy's ambassador said.if (window.yzq_a == null) document.write("");if (window.yzq_a)
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Gabriele Torsello and his Afghan translator were kidnapped in mid-October while traveling from Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province, toward neighboring Kandahar.

Ettore Francesco Sequi, Italy's ambassador to Afghanistan, said authorities at an Italian-run hospital in Helmand province received a phone call telling them to go to a location on the road linking Lashkar Gah and Kandahar. It was there that an Afghan hospital employee found Torsello, he said.

Torsello is in good health and will travel back to Kabul, where he could arrive sometime Sunday, Sequi said.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the military was helping to transport Torsello back to Kabul by air, but he didn't know when he would arrive.

In Italy, Modesto Nicoli, Torsello's family spokesman, welcomed the photographer's release.

"It's an indescribable joy, it's news we have been waiting for a long time," he told SkyTG24.

Sequi said he didn't think a ransom was paid for the freelance photographer.

Torsello's kidnappers had asked for the withdrawal of Italy's 1,800 troops from Afghanistan, and for the return of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who had faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity and was granted asylum in Italy.

Torsello's release was first reported by PeaceReporter, the online daily that has been handling media on behalf of Emergency, the Italian aid group that runs the hospital in Helmand province. The group has been in contact with Torsello and his abductors.

According to the transcript of an interview posted on the PeaceReporter Web site, Torsello said he never saw daylight while he was being held, that he was always chained, and that he sometimes read the Quran, Islam's holy book.

"I thought constantly of my family while I was a prisoner, so much so that at certain times I was able to travel in my mind and imagine I was elsewhere. Then I would see the chains at my feet, and I would realize that it was just a dream," the Web site quoted Torsello as saying.

Torsello, 36, who previously converted to Islam, now plans to see his family in Italy, the Web site said.

Sequi said he couldn't yet say who had kidnapped Torsello and that officials needed to speak with him and then make a "careful assessment." His kidnappers had originally claimed to be Taliban militants, but a spokesman for the Taliban later denied that insurgents had taken him.

It wasn't clear what Torsello was doing in southern Afghanistan, a dangerous part of the country where Westerners rarely travel on their own, but a Taliban spokesman last month told The Associated Press that Torsello had spent time with Taliban fighters in Musa Qala in Helmand province.

He lives in London, with his Austrian wife and their 4-year-old son. He is a native of Alessano, in southern Italy.

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Associated Press reporter Maria Sanminiatelli in Rome contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

PeaceReporter: http://www.peacereporter.net/default.php?line ditENG

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