Freed hostage back on Swiss soil

Werner Greiner endured six months in captivity Keystone

A freed Swiss hostage has returned home after being held captive by al-Qaida extremists in Mali for six months.

Werner Greiner, 57, flew into Zurich airport at 11.30am on Tuesday together with his wife, Gabriella, who had also been abducted in January but was released three months later. Switzerland has denied paying a ransom to free the couple.

Greiner appeared exhausted, but was relaxed when he spoke to the media alongside his wife and Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey at the airport.

“I am extremely tired but extremely happy to have my feet back on Swiss soil again,” he said. “I am very happy that I can be with my wife, family and friends.”

Greiner described the moment of his release when a man came up to him at 3pm on Sunday and said: “I am informing you that you are free”.

“I had been waiting six months for this moment,” Greiner said. “No-one can imagine what I have experienced. It was very hard under extreme conditions, especially in June and July, in the middle of the Sahara.”

“Terrible wait”

Werner and Gabriella Greiner were abducted along with a German woman and a British man on January 22 while visiting a Tuarag tribe festival near to the border of Niger. They were driven into Niger by the group that called itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM).

The extremists released Gabriella and the German woman in April, but later claimed they had executed the British hostage and threatened to kill Werner Greiner. Switzerland condemned the killing as a “barbaric act”.

AQIM had been demanding the release from a British prison of radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, who is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

The organisation had also claimed responsibility for the earlier kidnappings of a Canadian United Nations envoy and his assistant, who were also released in April.

Gabriella Greiner told journalists that she had been “astonished” to see her husband in such good shape after his release.

“It was particularly hard for me as I had also been held hostage. So you can imagine that the wait for my husband was terrible,” she said.

Challenging year

Both husband and wife thanked the Swiss authorities for their “professionalism” and “hard work” in securing their release.

Calmy-Rey, who had travelled with the couple from Paris to Zurich, denied that Switzerland had paid ransom money despite some press reports suggesting otherwise. “Switzerland never pays ransoms,” she said.

The Swiss foreign ministry had on Sunday also denied that it had negotiated directly with the extremists.

Switzerland had joined forces with the British, German and Canadian governments to secure the hostages’ release with the help of Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure.

Calmy-Rey added that it had been a challenging year for the foreign ministry following the unrelated kidnapping by Islamic rebels – and subsequent release – of Swiss aid worker Andreas Notter in the Philippines in January.

Matthew Allen, swissinfo.ch at Zurich airport

Mali

Switzerland recognised Mali as an independent state in 1960 and the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1961.

Despite a number of bilateral treaties (trade, economic cooperation, mutual investment protection, civil aviation), economic exchange remains modest.

Since the late 1970s, Mali has been a priority country for Swiss development cooperation.

Through its coordination office in the capital, Bamako, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) supports projects in the areas of healthcare, sustainable management of natural resources and decentralisation. In 2005 the SDC also provided food aid.

Population: 12.3 million
Per capita GDP 2007: $449 (SFr522)
Swiss colony 2006: 62 people
Swiss exports 2006: SFr2.6 million
Swiss imports 2006: SFr3.35 million