Kidnappers of German woman arrested in Afghanistan

Aug 20, 2007, 6:59 GMT

Kabul - Afghan police have Monday arrested four of the suspected kidnappers of the German woman Christina M, freed overnight, according to the Interior Ministry in Kabul.

  The four suspects, including the mastermind, were captured during the sting operation to free the hostage, according to interior ministry spokesman, Semarai Bashary.

   Bashary told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Christina M was freed in a joint operation by the ministry and the Afghan secret service.

The captors had denied being part of the Taliban and had demanded the release of 'innocent prisoners' in a videotape broadcast early Sunday by the private Tolo news channel.

   The 31-year-old woman was abducted Saturday by four armed men as she was leaving a restaurant in western Kabul in the presence of her husband.

A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin confirmed the report of the abductee's release.

'She is in the safe custody of the German embassy in Kabul,' said the spokeswoman, who declined to comment on the health of Christina M, who is believed to be pregnant.

After the abduction, Kabul police cordoned off the district where the woman was snatched, conducted house-to-house searches and threw up roadblocks on major roads out of the city to prevent her from being taken out of the capital. One taxi driver was reported slain by mistaken gunfire.

   Bashary said one of the suspects was also involved in the murder of two German journalists last year. The two Deutsche Welle reporters were shot in October while they were camping in northern Afghanistan.

   The ministry spokesman said they have detained the head of the network responsible for the act, but did not name the group.

   Afghanistan has seen a rash of kidnappings of foreigners since the abduction of an Italian journalist in March led to the release of five Taliban prisoners.

A German man was kidnapped on July 18 in the central province of Maidan Wardak. Negotiations continue for the release of the engineer and 19 South Korean Christian aid workers who were abducted in July. Two ill hostages were killed earlier by the Taliban, and two South Korean women were released last week.

Christina M is a staffer for Ora International, a Christian aid organization that has operated in Afghanistan since 1991.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin extended gratitude to the Afghan authorities with whom his government had worked 'closely, faithfully and successfully' to safely gain the German woman's freedom.

Steinmeier emphasized that the German Foreign Ministry is continuing to seek the release of the German construction engineer abducted last month, identified as Rudolf B.

The 62-year-old hostage was able to speak by telephone Sunday with a reporter in Kabul from German broadcaster ARD, reporting that his health was deteriorating. The abductee asked why a ransom had not been paid for his quick release and called for the German embassy in Kabul to act more strongly to gain his freedom.

The circumstanced under which Rudolf B was able to make the telephone call were not known.