A CANADIAN journalist has told of her four-week ordeal at the hands of Afghan criminals who kept her captive in a tiny cave.
Mellissa Fung, a television reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) in Afghanistan, was freed on Saturday after being abducted by armed men at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul on 12 October.
In a video released yesterday by Afgh
anistan's intelligence agency, which secured her release, Ms Fung also said she had her hands and legs chained during her last week of detention in the mountainous Maidan Wardak province just south-west of Kabul. She said her captors did not hurt her, but that she was kept blindfolded.
Adam Khan Serat, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Wardak, said Ms Fung was freed after tribal elders and provincial council members negotiated her release.
The video shows her telling Canada's ambassador that she hoped people would not make "a big fuss" over her situation. She said: "I'm fine, really, I'm fine. I'm just happy to be here."
Afghanistan's intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, can also be seen questioning Ms Fung, asking her where she was kept captive. Ms Fung replied: "In a cave. It was very small. They dug a small hole … and the (entrance] hole was here, and then there was a little tunnel that went into the cave."
She also drew a sketch of the cave, saying she could barely stand up in it.
It is not known whether her abductors were members of a criminal group or Taleban insurgents who have also been behind many other snatches in Afghanistan in recent years.
Three men were arrested in the raid, but one of the ring-leaders has fled abroad, an intelligence official said.
John Cruickshank of CBC News said news organisations had complied with his request that a news blackout be thrown over Ms Fung's abduction in a bid to ensure her safety while negotiations were ongoing.
He said that Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, had been "directly involved from the first day" of Ms Fung's abduction. On Saturday, Mr Harper praised the Afghan government for its co-operation.
