ROME - Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, held hostage in Iraq for the past month, has been freed, Italy`s President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said Friday.
Ciampi said he had been informed of the journalist`s release by Gianni Letta, the minister responsible for the Italian secret service.
"I`m very moved and happy. The release of Giuliana Sgrena has given us women the most beautiful present for March 8," said Deputy Foreign Minister Margherita Boniver, referring to International Women`s Day next Tuesday.
Sgrena, a 56-year-old veteran Middle East correspondent for the leftist daily Il Manifesto, was abducted February 4 after visiting a Baghdad mosque where refugees have been encamped since a devastating US-led assault on the city of Fallujah in November.
Sgrena was shown pleading for her life in a video released by her kidnappers two weeks after her kidnapping in Baghdad.
Sobbing and looking thinner, she delivered an impassioned message first in Italian, then in French to plead for her life, to beg Rome to withdraw its troops from Iraq and to warn all foreigners, including journalists, to stay away from Iraq.
Sgrena has worked since 1988 for Il Manifesto, which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq.
03/04/2005 18:23 GMT