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High Commissioner Pushes for Journalist's Release
Tuesday, October 02, 2001
By Claire Cozens / Company

A senior British diplomat has met a Taliban official to push for the release of the arrested Sunday Express journalist, Yvonne Ridley, the Foreign Office said today.

The British high commissioner to Pakistan, Hilary Synnott, met the Taliban representative, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad.

Ridley and her two guides were detained last Friday near Jalalabad in Afghanistan, about nine miles from the Pakistan border.

"The high commissioner expressed our concern at Yvonne's arrest," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "He has asked the Taliban for her early release."

The spokesman said he did not have any further details of the meeting.

When Ridley, 43, was arrested she was reported to have been wearing a burka, the traditional local dress that covers the entire body, and to be without her passport.

The Foreign Office has been working to obtain a speedy release for the journalist and mother.
Yesterday it said it hoped to hear soon whether Ridley would be charged with spying.
(The Guardian News Source)

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