Kidnapped Italian in Algeria 'well'

An Italian tourist kidnapped in southern Algeria in February is "alive and in good health," Algerian Tourism Minister Smail Mimoune said Thursday.

The minister told a local daily he had received the information on Maria Sandra Mariani "a few days ago".

Mariani, 53, was taken hostage on February 2 by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group.

She has since broken radio silence and said she was in the hands of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which seized her in the Algerian Sahara near the border with Niger. The Italian foreign ministry has been closely following the case, under tight reporting restrictions, with Algerian authorities. AQIM, who have staged several kidnappings in the area between Mali, Mauritania and Niger in the last three years, have so far not issued any demands for Mariani's release. The kidnapping was the first in Algeria since 2003, when 32 Western tourists were taken hostage. Mariani is not believed to have been the initial target of the AQIM group that came into a tourist camp at Alidena, 2,000 km south of Algiers, reportedly looking for a party of Westerners. Mariani, from Tuscany, had been going to the Djanet oasis city for five years, for spells of one or two months. She is believed to have been taken across the border into Niger. photo: Mariani's father at his agriturismo outside the Tuscan town of San Casciano Val di Pesa