Special forces free hostages

2004-06-08 15:04

Warsaw - Three Italians and a Polish contractor kidnapped in Iraq have been freed on Tuesday by US special forces, Polish military officials said.

"A Polish citizen ... was freed by special forces of the coalition forces. His life and health are not threatened," General Mieczyslaw Bieniek, head of the Polish-led multinational force, said from Iraq on Polish television station TVN24.

"Three other persons of Italian citizenship were also freed," he said.

All four were rescued Tuesday, a spokesperson for the multinational force, Polish Major Slawomir Walenczykowski, told The Associated Press by telephone.

In Italy, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and Gianni Letta, a top aide to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, confirmed reports that the three Italians were free.

They were kidnapped April 12 with a fourth man who was executed days later.

All four were in Iraq as private security guards. A video was shown last week on Arab television showing them eating and sitting in chairs before the camera.

Polish businessman Jerzy Kos, 64, who works for the Jedynka construction company, was abducted last week from his office in a suburb northwest of Baghdad.

Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Boguslaw Majewski said US forces freed the hostages, but that he had no further details.

Walenczykowski said the Pole had been handed over to the Polish embassy in Baghdad, "safe and sound."

- AP