Mali/ Al-Qaeda: The last hostage back in Switzerland

ZURICH- The last hostage held by Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi), Switzerland's Werner Greiner, released Sunday in Mali, returned late Tuesday morning to Switzerland

• The last hostage held by Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi), Switzerland's Werner Greiner, released Sunday in Mali, returned late Tuesday morning to Switzerland with Federal Councillor (Minister) for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland Micheline Calmy-Rey.
  
      The lawyer for 57, accompanied by his wife and Mrs Calmy-Rey, arrived from Paris at 11:28 am (09:28 am GMT) at the airport of Zurich-Kloten. He had left in the night in Bamako for the French capital where his wife joined him, said a spokesman for the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Jean-Philippe Jutzi.
  
      The former hostages would then attend a press conference at the airport.
  
      Werner Greiner was the last hostage to be released among six abducted by the Western Aqmi between December and January in Mali and Niger.
  
      On June 3, Aqmi announced on a website have killed for the first time a Western hostage, the British tourist Edwin Dyer, he was captured on 22 January with a group of three other European tourists in Niger, which borders Mali.
  
      Two of them, Marianne Petzold German and Swiss Gabriella Burco, wife of Mr. Greiner had been released on April 22 in northern Mali along with two Canadian diplomats kidnapped in December.
  
      A ransom of three to five million Euros has been paid, said Monday the Algerian Arabic daily El-Khabar, quoting an Algerian security source.
  
      A Swiss diplomat Markus Boerlin, cited by the Swiss news agency ATS, assured Sunday that “Switzerland has neither negotiated with the kidnappers nor paid ransom.”
  
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.