Freed French hostage flies home

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2007

KABUL (AFP) — A French woman freed by the Taliban after 24 days in captivity flew out of Afghanistan overnight after a tearful appeal for the release of her four male colleagues, the French embassy said Sunday.

The aid worker was freed in the southern province of Kandahar on Saturday with a message from her captors demanding the withdrawal of France's troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

"She went back to France during the night," the embassy in Kabul told AFP, adding the matter had been treated with "due discretion."

It would not release details of where the woman, Celine Cordelier and aged between 20 and 30, had flown to or who had transported her.

Cordelier was captured April 3 in the southwestern province of Nimroz with...