Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema on Thursday defended the government's handling of the kidnapping of journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo by Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan last month.
Mastrogiacomo was released on March 19, after two weeks in captivity, thanks to a controversial deal involving the simultaneous release of five Taliban members held in Kabul by Afghan authorities.
The government has been criticised both at home and abroad, with the United States among others saying Italy had conceded to terrorists by negotiating with them and was encouraging more kidnappings.
"We acted on the basis of one criterion - that of giving priority to the safety of the hostages," D'Alema said in a speech to parliament. "This is an established principle, used over the years by various Italian governments and always supported".
The minister said that the five Taliban members released were not fighters, but spokesmen, and so would presumably not join the ranks of armed guerrillas.
He also said that Italy was not the only Western government that negotiated when its nationals were kidnapped. "Others do it as well, although the methods vary from case to case," he said.
It would be useful if NATO allies could agree a set of rules on what measures a government could acceptably take to obtain the release of abducted citizens, he added.
Although Mastrogiacomo emerged unscathed, his Afghan driver and interpreter - who were kidnapped with him - were both killed by the Taliban.
D'Alema's speech to parliament, which contained condemnation of these "barbaric" killings, began with a minute's silence in their honour.
INTERPRETER IN 'FALSE RELEASE'.
Mastrogiacomo's driver was killed soon after the three were abducted but the interpreter, Adjmal Nashkbandi, was to have been released at the same time as the Italian. But he never appeared and Taliban fighters announced on Sunday that they had cut his throat.
D'Alema said Adjmal had probably been involved in a "false release" and that "afterwards he was recaptured by the same or a different group".
"It is all rather confused and mysterious. We do not have any elements to clarify what happened," he admitted.
Italy's centre-right opposition has echoed US criticism of the deal which produced Mastrogiacomo's release but has also accused the government of mismanaging the affair in other ways, such as by using an aid organisation, Emergency, as the key mediator.
In addition, it has raised questions over why Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to release five prisoners, suggesting that Prodi applied undue pressure.
Former Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini repeated these claims on Wednesday, saying Karzai had been against releasing the prisoners and had only been persuaded by Prodi threatening to pull Italian troops out of Afghanistan.
D'Alema implicitly denied this in his speech, saying that Karzai's government had simply been given a list of names that Mastrogiacomo's captors wanted released "so that it could be evaluated".
'GOVT CANNOT RELEASE HANEFI'.
The minister also touched on another more recent polemic connected to the Mastrogiacomo affair, one centring on Rahmatullah Hanefi, the Afghan Emergency operative who personally negotiated with the Taliban
Afghan secret services have accused Hanefi of "supporting terrorists" and are holding him in jail. An Afghan government spokesman on Wednesday reiterated Kabul's suspicions that Hanefi played a role in Mastrogiacomo's abduction.
The Emergency worker's detention is one of the reasons his organisation on Tuesday pulled out international staff from Afghanistan, saying the government was forcing it to leave.
Emergency's founder Gino Strada, in open polemic with Prodi, has accused the Italian government of doing too little to secure Hanefi's release.
Responding to these accusations, D'Alema said: "The government will continue to insist that the accusations against Hanefi be made public and that he be judged, if necessary, as quickly as possible and with all the necessary guarantees".
"This is what the government can do. The government cannot free Hanefi, who has been accused of crimes by his own authorities."
D'Alema said Italy's ambassador in Kabul had managed to arrange for a Red Cross representative to visit Hanefi in jail.
