Rumours suggesting that Italy
paid a ransom to free two young hostages kidnapped in Syria last
summer are "just conjecture", Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni
said Friday.
The Italian government, like its predecessors and in line
with international practice, is against paying ransom to free
hostages, Gentiloni told the Lower House after welcoming home
aid workers Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo.
The two women arrived in Rome early Friday after almost six
months in captivity.
When their release was announced Thursday, opposition
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini referred to media reports
suggesting the Italian government paid a 12-million-euro ransom
and denounced the practise.
Italy has been on the front line against terror since the
September 2001 attacks on the United States and "won't be
lectured by anyone on that", Gentiloni said as he reported to
the House on the situation.
Rome will reaffirm this stand at an upcoming conference of
the coalition fighting Islamic State (ISIS) extremist militants
in Syria and Iraq, he added.
The women, wearing winter parkas and looking exhausted from
their ordeal, were greeted with long hugs from their parents,
family and friends, who drove down from Lombardy to meet them in
Rome.
Marzullo, 21, and Ramelli, 20, arrived in Syria July 28 to
volunteer on health and water-related humanitarian aid projects,
and were abducted just three days later.
The aid workers arrived in Rome at about 4:20 a.m. Friday
after a three-hour flight from Turkey on an Italian military
plane.
Marzullo was greeted by her parents and brother while
Ramelli was welcomed by her parents, her brother and his
fiancée, as well as two school friends who are also aid workers.
They later met with prosecutors investigating a case of
kidnapping with terrorist intent.
The two young women said they were held in various prisons
in northern Syria.
Their jailers always covered their faces, but never
threatened to kill them.
The conditions of their captivity were tough but bearable,
and they were not abused or subjected to violence.
As well, the two young women reportedly told prosecutors
they didn't know anything about a ransom being paid for their
release.
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