(22 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Algiers, Algeria – 22 January 2025
1. Mid of Gilbert Navarro, a Spanish man who was kidnapped in southern Algeria, speaking to people
2. Various of Navarro at press conference
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Gilbert Navarro, Spanish man who was kidnapped in southern Algeria:
“I am still in a state of shock and I will need a few days to be able to regain a sense of calm and tranquillity, which I really need. In any case, I thank you all. I have felt very welcomed and very loved, and this touches my heart.”
4. Spanish ambassador to Algeria, Fernando Moran Calvo-Sotelo, speaking at press conference
5. Mid of audience
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Fernando Moran Calvo-Sotelo, Spanish ambassador to Algeria:
“For Spain, Algeria has a prominent role in the fight against terrorism and in guaranteeing security for all of us. Thank you again to the Algerian authorities, and I welcome Mr. Navarro back with us."
7. Navarro leaving press conference
STORYLINE:
A Spanish man who was kidnapped in southern Algeria last week has thanked those involved in his release after being handed over to Spanish authorities on Wednesday.
The circumstances of Gilbert Navarro’s kidnapping are unclear, but Spain’s Foreign Ministry said last week that a Spanish man had been kidnapped in an unspecified northern African country.
Spanish media reported that the man was captured in southern Algeria and taken to Mali by the Islamic State group in the Greater Sahara.
The Foreign Ministry would not confirm the media reports or reveal the location of the kidnapping.
Navarro appeared in good health and thanked those gathered at a press conference at Algeria’s ministry of foreign affairs.
“I am still in a state of shock and I will need a few days to be able to regain a sense of calm and tranquillity, which I really need,” he said.
The Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a coalition of separatist armed groups in Mali’s predominantly Tuareg north, said on X Tuesday that it had freed Navarro.
Boubacar Sadigh Ould Taleb, the FLA’s communications officer, told The Associated Press that Navarro was kidnapped on January 17 by a “transnational mafia,” without identifying the group.
Taleb said armed men from the FLA located Navarro and his kidnappers near the town of Indelimane in Mali’s eastern region of Menaka, more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the Algerian border.
After surrounding the kidnappers, the rebel fighters were able to negotiate the Spanish man’s release on Monday, he said.
On Algerian television, a special programme on Tuesday evening showed Navarro aboard an Algerian army plane landing at a military airport west of Algiers.
The country’s defence ministry said Navarro was a tourist who was taken by five members of an unnamed armed group.
Kidnappings have rarely been reported in Algeria in recent years, but Africa’s largest country by area continues to face instability along its southern borders with Niger and Mali.
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