AFGHANISTAN: Free Abducted Italian Journalist – Taliban Call

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Danish Karokhel - Pajhwok Afghan News

KABUL, Oct 24 2006 (IPS) - An Italian freelance photojournalist kidnapped in southern Afghanistan by unidentified gunmen should be immediately released, a Taliban spokesman said on Tuesday.

Gabriele Torsello was abducted with his Afghan assistant on Oct. 12 between Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province, and Kandahar. Five armed men stopped their taxi and took them away, according to Ghulam Mohammad, a fellow-passenger.

The kidnappers have threatened to kill the photojournalist, who is now a practicing Muslim, unless Italy returns Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert who was given asylum, and also withdraws its soldiers from the country.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, the so-called Taliban spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News over phone from an undisclosed location that the journalist is innocent and must not be made to pay for the actions of the Italian government. The abductors who claimed they were Taliban did so only to defame us, he said.

”Kidnappers of the Italian journalist are robbers and they have abducted the journalist for money. We will drag them to court if we find them,” he declared.

Torsello who has been in Afghanistan had visited Musa Qala and Sangin districts of restive Helmand. The Taliban who have appealed for his release said that they provided the photojournalist with security during his five day assignment in the two districts..

On Oct. 19, Pajhwok spoke to Torsello in captivity on his cell phone. The journalist who sounded very frightened, said he was under constant threat. He pleaded for help from the media to arrange his release.

”The kidnappers tell me that I am a spy and that British troops bombed Musa Qala and Nawzad districts on intelligence I have provided,” he said in a shaky voice. He said he was kept blindfolded and did not know his whereabouts.

The London-based journalist has been in and out of Afghanistan for the past couple of years. Fourteen months ago he paid for the surgery of a baby girl who was suffering from neurofibromas, a rare paediatric disease. The nine-month-old infant had an ugly tumour on the eye that was operated on in Maiwand hospital in Kabul.

Janat Gul, little Shabana’s father, has demanded that the kidnappers release the photojournalist. ”Torsello is a sympathetic Muslim and helps hapless people like me. The abductors should assist him and should free him,” he told Pajhwok in an interview.

A resident of Bamiyan province, Gul has been living with his family in the Khair Khana area of the Afghan capital. Employed as a daily wage worker, he said that he would never have been able to afford his daughter’s treatment.

One day, Torsello noticed a woman wearing a turquoise ‘chador’ (scarf) walking towards the bus station with a baby in her arms. The baby with striking ‘dark blonde hair and green luminous eyes’ had an abnormal and painful abscess on her face.

The journalist was so moved that he asked the mother what was wrong with her child. But the only thing she said was, ‘doctor, doctor’. Because he persisted she let him write down her name and address.

Gul recalled that the journalist visited their home, and offered to pay for Shabana’s treatment. Together they consulted with many doctors before the baby was admitted for surgery. The operation took four hours, and the child was discharged from the hospital after four days.

”Shabana cannot speak, but she recognises Torsello’s pictures, and loves him very much,” the grateful father said.

According to Gul, Torsello ‘’offers prayers, keeps fasts and loves Afghans”. Today’s news saddened me. Now I cannot feel the joy of Eid-ul-Fitr,” he said sadly.

The photojournalist was kidnapped during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The 30 days of fasting culminates in the festival of Eid, which was celebrated in Afghanistan on Monday.

Torsello who has worked as a photojournalist around the world for the past decade, has stayed in Afghanistan for several months at a stretch, wearing a black beard and Afghan clothes. The priest at Shahdano mosque said he has twice seen him offering prayers.

The journalist who travelled to southern Afghanistan to report on the fighting that has erupted over the last few months, was arrested along with some others by the Taliban on charges of spying. But he was soon released. Provincial police chief Nabi Jan Mallakhel told Pajhwok that the journalist was picked up as soon as he arrived in Helmand.

On Sep. 4, Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban military commander, had threatened to kill journalists who published news put out by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. ‘’We have an Islamic right to kill such reporters,” he had warned.

After Torsello’s abduction, Ahmadi, the spokesman accused the government of ‘’hiding the foreign journalist” just to defame the Taliban. ”When we kidnap someone, we immediately inform the media,” he said. ”And if the person is proven guilty after interrogation, our supreme council decides his fate.”

Two German journalists working for international broadcaster Deutsche Welle were shot dead by unidentified attackers in northern Afghanistan on Oct. 7. They were the first foreign reporters to be killed since the Taliban were ousted from power late 2001. (*Released under agreement with Pajhwok Afghan News)