“Italian hostage ‘not well’ but alive,” from UPI:
Kabul, Afghanistan, May. 21 (UPI) — An Italian relief worker taken hostage in Kabul is alive, but unwell, her alleged captor said during a phone call, the ANSA news agency reported Saturday.
Clementina Contini, kidnapped Monday in the Afghan capital, “is not well and has an infection in one eye,” according to a caller who identified himself as Temor Shah.
In a series of at least five ultimatums phoned in to a French news organization and all postponed before the deadline, Contini’s kidnapper demanded Afghanistan ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, cancel a TV program considered offensive by Islamic fundamentalists, and improve the condition of the madrassas, or Islamic religious schools.