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Alert

Taliban threaten to kill kidnapped fixer Adjmal Nasqhbandi; body of murdered driver returned to family

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced the hope that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will intercede on behalf of Afghan journalist Adjmal Nasqhbandi, the fixer of "La Repubblica" correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo. Aged 25, Nasqhbandi is still being held in the southern province of Helmand by Taliban under the command of Mullah Dadullah, who has threatened to kill him.

"It is not a question of yielding to blackmail but of making an effort to save a man's life," the press freedom organisation said. "We call on the Afghan and Italian authorities not to remain indifferent to this young journalist's fate."

In a video broadcast by the Italian TV channel Sky tg24, Dadullah threatened to kill Nasqhbandi if President Karzai refused to discuss the release of two detained Taliban members in exchange for him. "If Karzai really is Afghanistan's president, he must negotiate Adjmal's release with us. If there is no negotiation, we will kill him."

In the course of the interview, Dadullah was very critical of foreign journalists who "never say on the air what [the Taliban] say and do."

Afghan journalists set up a tent outside the parliament in Kabul on 28 March 2007 to draw attention to their calls for Nasqhbandi's release. Reporters Without Borders supported the call for a demonstration at 2:30 p.m. (local time) on 31 March 2007, on the Piazza Navona in Rome in support of his release and that of a member of the Italian NGO Emergency.

It has meanwhile been confirmed that the family of Mastrogiacomo's driver, Sayed Agha, was able to recover his body on 25 March, but without the head. He has been buried in Lashkar Gal. Aged 36, Agha was married and had five children. According to IWPR's reporter, his youngest son was born on 6 March, the day after he was kidnapped along with Mastrogiacomo and Nasqhbandi. He owned a tea shop and a vehicle which he often rented to foreign journalists.