ROME, Italy  - An Italian hostage kidnapped by Qaeda in February last year in southern Algeria was released on Tuesday, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. “Maria Sandra Mariani is free. I have just informed her relatives. I join them in their great satisfaction and relief at this magnificent news,” Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi was quoted as saying. He also voiced gratitude for “all those who contributed to this result.” Her father burst out crying on hearing the news and lawmakers in the Italian parliament burst out in a round of applause, media reports said.
Mariani was travelling with a driver and a tour guide when she was kidnapped in the Sahara desert region of southern Algeria on February 2, 2011.
The driver and guide were later released and said they had been kidnapped by “14 men riding in two Toyota trucks” a security source said at the time.
In July last year, AFP in Bamako in Mali viewed a video of the woman given to negotiators in which she did not speak but was shown wearing a veil and pink robes, sitting on the sand with her hands crossed.