Italy Says Does Not Consider Taliban Hostage Freed

Italy's government still has no reason to believe that Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo has been freed.

The Taliban, who had been holding Mastrogiacomo, said earlier on Sunday they had released him to a third party.

"We have seen reports that he has been handed over to a third party of tribal chiefs. That is not a liberation," the government spokesman told Reuters.

"He has probably been handed over to people who have the task of verifying whether certain conditions have been met and whether to free him or not," the spokesman added.

He said the situation regarding Mastrogiacomo remained "very delicate."

Mastrogiacomo and two colleagues were seized in the lawless southern province of Helmand last week and the Taliban said he had confessed to spying for British troops.

Italian aid group Emergency, which says it has been mediating in the crisis and received a video of Mastrogiacomo on March 14, said the situation was not resolved.

"The Taliban's demands need to be fully met and we are still not there, and that makes the situation complex and worrying," Emergency Vice President Carlo Garbagnati told Reuters.

Mastrogiacomo's employer, the newspaper La Repubblica, denied the Karachi-born reporter was a spy and said he had worked for the paper since 1980.