An Iraqi group which claims it is holding an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq said on Monday it would release her soon because she was not a spy, a statement on an Islamist Web site said.
«Since it has become absolutely clear that the Italian prisoner is not involved in espionage for the infidels in Iraq, and in response to the call from the Muslim Clerics Association, we in the Jihad Organisation will release the Italian prisoner in the coming days,» the statement dated Monday said.
It mentioned by name Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with communist Rome newspaper Il Manifesto who was snatched as she conducted interviews near Baghdad University on Friday. The Muslim Clerics Association, a group of Iraqi clerics seen as influential among insurgents, had called for her release.(reuters)