Italian Journalists Kidnapped in Libya Freed

Four Italian journalists kidnapped in Libya on Wednesday by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, have been freed, the foreign ministry said in Rome.

"I'm alive and kicking," Domenico Quirico told his colleagues at La Stampa newspaper by phone, confirming he had been freed along with two reporters for Italy's top daily, Corriere della Sera and one for Avvenire, a Catholic paper.

The group's driver was shot dead.

The four were liberated around 0930 GMT, according to a ministry spokesman, who said the journalists "are now in a hotel with other Italian journalists" and "are well."

"Now I'm fine. Until about an hour ago I thought I'd be dead," Quirico said.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper, which broke the news, said two "young people" had "broken into the private house in Tripoli where they were imprisoned" and freed the journalists.

The newspaper said it had spoken to correspondent Elisabetta Rosaspina after her release and while it was "not yet clear" what had happened, it "seems the jailer had left the house overnight."

The paper's other correspondent, Giuseppe Sarcina, told SKY TG 24 that the group had been "freed by loyalists," who were "not regular soldiers or civilians, they were militants."

The four were taken on Wednesday while driving towards Tripoli from the town of Zawiyah, which is 40 kilometers away.

Gadhafi loyalists stopped the car, killed the driver, and took the journalists to a house where the Avvenire reporter was allowed to call an editor.

"It's a miracle that we are alive ... They were the worst moments of my life," Claudio Monici told the Catholic newspaper by telephone afterwards. "We risked being lynched," he said.

The journalists were freed shortly before the start of talks between Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Mahmoud Jibril, a senior member of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).