Gabriele Torsello

Gabriele Torsello (also known as "Kash"; born 12 August 1970) is an Italian freelance journalist and photojournalist based in London who was abducted in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on 12 October 2006. Kosovar businessman Behgjet Pacolli played a major role in negotiating Torsello's release on 3 November 2006.Dejan Lukić: ''Hostage Spaces of the Contemporary Islamic World: Phantom Territoriality'', Bloomsbury, London New Delhi New York Sydney 2013, ISBN 978-1-441-6035-5, p. 115 Torsello is a Muslim convert, and author of ''The Heart of Kashmir''.

Kidnapping

Torsello was abducted in Helmand on 12 October 2006 and released on 3 November 2006. He was traveling on a bus from Helmand to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan when he was seized. His translator Ghulam Mohammad was left unharmed.

His captors moved him into a different location: "They arrived and opened the door. One of them grabbed me and took me out without letting me put my shoes on and without blindfolding me, a thing that they always did. He pushed me hard. I had the chains - I couldn't follow him and I had to jump to be able to follow him. I thought they were going to kill me. But they put me in a car instead." He was kept in chains in a windowless room during his captivity, living on a diet of potatoes and Afghan bread dipped in a watery soup.

According to the BBC and consolidated international press reports on a National Union of Journalists Photographers’ blog, Torsello made a telephone call on 12 October 2006 to the director of the hospital in Lashkar Gah confirming that he had been kidnapped and did not know where he was being held. He asked the director to explain to the kidnappers that he was a genuine photo reporter and not a spy. The phone call was eventually cut off, but he was able on a few occasions later to contact the Italian organisation ''Emergency'' who ran the hospital.

A press release from '' Reporters Without Borders'' quoted Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban military chieftain, who threatened on 4 September 2006 to kill journalists who published news put out by the NATO forces in Afghanistan, as saying "We have an Islamic right to kill such reporters." However, a later report quotes a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, telling the Afghan news agency Pajhwok that the kidnappers should "free their hostage because it is not fair to hit at Italy by killing an innocent journalist." He added that "the kidnappers are just bandits interested in money." ''Reporters Without Borders'' suggest that their original demands might have been just a way of introducing a ransom request. It is possible that the Taliban issue statements such as this to make kidnappings appear to be political rather than an exercise in revenue generation. To confuse the position, the captors are reported to have contacted ''Emergency'' and asked, in exchange for freeing Torsello, for the return to Afghanistan of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen who converted to Christianity and who escaped to Italy after he was sentenced to death in March 2006. Furthermore, the Italian press agency ''AGI'' on 20 October 2006, quoted Torsello as saying, under duress, "The kidnappers frequently tell me that I am a spy and that British troops bombed Musa Qala and Nawzad districts on my intelligence", but that the abductors, contrary to their previous remarks, distanced themselves from the Taliban and said they were just Muslims fighting foreign occupation in the war-battered country.

On 2 November 2006, 18:00 CET, Italian intelligence agency SISMI – who attempted to negotiate Torsello's release – asked Gigi Moncalvo to make contact with Behgjet Pacolli, an expert in negotiating hostage-taking situations. Throughout the following night, Pacolli began negotiating Torsello's release with an Afghan contact person whom he had already negotiated with in a previous hostage-taking situation in 2004. Eventually, Torsello was released the following day around 10:00 CET near Kandahar. According to Swiss news site tio.ch, Pacolli had to do the terrorists a "non-financial favour“ in return for Torsello's release. Staff from the ''Emergency'' aid agency found Torsello on the road a short time later. According to the BBC, a substantial ransom is reported to have been paid to release Torsello, and the governments of Afghanistan and Italy have been criticised for the way they dealt with the Taliban in securing his release and that of other such hostages.

The head of ''Emergency'', Gino Strada, is quoted as saying that the Italian government entrusted US$2 million to Rahmatullah Hanefi, the Afghan director of their hospital in Helmand, to secure the release of Torsello. In a separate hostage negotiation on April 7 for the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, the Italian ''la Repubblica'' foreign correspondent, and his interpreter and driver, Hanefi was arrested and put in jail in Kabul by Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government, alleging that Hanefi had played a part in the capture of Mastrogiacomo by the Taliban. Italy's deputy foreign affairs minister, Ugo Intini, confirmed that the Afghan government released five Taliban prisoners to win the freedom of Mastrogiacomo.‘5 Taliban prisoners swapped for journalist’, Associated Press report 21 Mar 07 at NBC News.msn.co

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See also

* List of kidnappings
*List of solved missing person cases

References

External links

The Kash Notice Board - daily updates and messages of goodwill

Reporters without Borders : Free Gabriele Torsello Petition
* Muslim Council of Britain, 4 February 2004
The Heart of Kashmir
* MCB Feature Item, 5 May 2004
"Interview with Kash Gabriele Torsello : Reflections on Kashmir - the forgotten people"
* BBC News, 15 October 2006
"Reporter Abducted in Afghanistan"
* EPUK, 26 October 2006
"Call for Torsello Release"
* NPPA, 1 November 2006

* Peace Reporter, 3 November 2006
"Gabriele Torsello is Free"
* EPUK, 3 November 2006
"Afghan Kidnappers Release Photojournalist"

* Interview with Torsello 2011, by Accademia Apulia UK

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torsello, Kash Gabriele
1970 births
2000s missing person cases
Converts to Islam
Foreign hostages in Afghanistan
Italian Muslims
Formerly missing people
Italian people taken hostage
Italian photojournalists
Living people
Missing person cases in Afghanistan