**An Italian couple who were being held hostage in the west African country of Mali by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been released.**Local officials said Sergio Cicala and Philomene Kaboure were picked up by an army patrol in the eastern Gao region.
Italy’s foreign minister said they were “in the hands of Malian authorities” and were being taken to a “safe place”.
Mr Cicala and Mrs Kaboure - who is also a citizen of Burkina Faso - were seized in December in neighbouring Mauritania.
The married couple had been driving past the eastern town of Kobenni on 18 December - en route to Burkina Faso to see Mrs Kaboure’s 12-year-old son - when they were stopped by gunmen.
At the end of December, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) published a picture on the internet of a grey-haired man, identified as Mr Cicala, kneeling on a rug in the desert next to a woman. The woman was named in a caption as his wife, but her face and passport were obscured.
AQIM had demanded in February that Mali’s government free imprisoned militants before 1 March in exchange for the couple.
Shortly before the deadline expired, Mr Cicala urged Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to intervene in a purported audio message.
AQIM members in Mali are also believed to be holding two Spanish hostages who were abducted shortly before Mr Cicala and Mrs Kaboure. A French hostage, Pierre Camatte, was released in February, days after four militants were released from jail in Mali.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb emerged in early 2007, after a feared militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), aligned itself with Osama Bin Laden’s international network.
It has waged a campaign of suicide bomb attacks and ambushes in Algeria, and in recent years has become more active in the Sahara.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.