Taliban release Swiss hostages’ video

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has released two videos of the kidnapped Swiss couple who have been held hostage for the past four months, swissinfo.ch, the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, reported on Tuesday.

The videos, in English and Swiss-German dialect, show the couple holding a newspaper dated September 15 and calling for Switzerland, the United States and Pakistan to meet the captors’ demands.

The TTP had earlier said they would release the couple if the US freed Aafia Siddiqui, a female neuro-scientist sentenced in 2010 for terrorism and currently held in the US.

“Our lives are at risk” if the demands are not met, one of the hostages says in one of the videos.

Taliban sources told the German news agency the couple were still alive, although the videos made public on Tuesday were five weeks old.

The Swiss foreign ministry did not wish to comment when contacted by AFP, saying only that a crisis group was still working for the release of their two nationals.

Swiss nationals David Olivier, 31, and Widmar Daniela, 29, were abducted by unidentified gunmen in Loralai on July 1 while travelling in the Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2011.