ROME, September 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As the Italian government denied paying ransom to secure the release of two women aid workers in Iraq, one of the former hostages said they had been well-treated during their three-week ordeal, adding she would be willing to return to Iraq.

Simona Pari and Simona Torretta returned to Italy Tuesday night, September 28, after being freed in return for what most Italian newspapers claimed a ransom of about one million dollars.

Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, however denied the claims, insisting no ransom had been paid, Financial Times reported Thursday, September 30.

“The only mediation used was the great system of contacts that made the kidnappers understand in concrete terms who they were dealing with - Italy, loved and held in esteem by the Arab world,” Frattini said.

The two hostages, meanwhile, said they were “well-treated” by the kidnappers, noting they are ready to come back to the Arab country.

“I would do it all over again with all the consequences that that carries even though I'm sorry for all the suffering my mother went through and didn't deserve,” Simona Torretta was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

The two women both worked for “A Bridge to Baghdad”, an Iraq-based Italian non-governmental organization.

Torretta said she and Pari had been treated “well and with a lot of respect” during their captivity. She was clutching a box of sweets which she said her kidnappers had given her as a farewell gift.

“It was tough, but we knew that we would be freed,” she said.

“We'll see but probably, yes, I will return," she added. “But for now I must be close to my family.”

According to Maurizio Scelli, head of the Italian Red Cross who accompanied the women from Baghdad, they told him they had been held together in a room but were not blindfolded or tied up.

Torretta and Pari wore long tunics embroidered with flowers commonly worn by women in the Middle East as they stepped off the plane in Rome.

They were greeted by their families accompanied by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi whose government has come under fire for committing some 3,000 Italian troops to the US-led coalition in Iraq.

Italy had been shocked by the murder in August of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni in Iraq, who was executed by his abductors after Berlusconi refused to bow to demands to pull out the Italian troops.

The kidnapping of the two women galvanized the country, with candle-lit vigils and messages of solidarity.

“It has been a long time since Italy enjoyed a true and spontaneous feeling of joy, capable of uniting the entire nation,” said the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

“After so many days, so many nights, so many paths trodden and 16 negotiations launched keeping us all in suspense, the story ends,” Berlusconi told an impromptu news conference in Rome shortly after the women's release.

Pope John Paul II expressed his “great joy” at their release, which was also welcomed by other world leaders.

Pari, whose family lives in Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, arrived in her hometown overnight accompanied by her parents, her brother and the town mayor.

“Everything went well, very well,” her mother Donatella told reporters.

Other details began to emerge of their ordeal, with their Iraqi male colleague who was seized with them saying he was held separately from the women.

“I never saw the women until this morning (Tuesday),” Ali Raad Abdul Aziz told the Italian news network SKYTG24.

The other Iraqi hostage seized, Mahnaz Assam, told Italian television that she had also been held separately from the others.

Two French journalists, apparently captured by the same group, were still being held.

But, Paul Bigley, the brother of British hostage Ken Bigely told British television that a communiqué posted on an Arabic-language website suggested he could be freed soon.

It was never quite clear which group detained Pari, Torretta and their two Iraqi colleagues. Their abduction was claimed by two organisations, while several statements posted on websites on their fate were dismissed by the Italian authorities.

A few hours before the release of the two Italian women, the Union of Italy's Islamic Communities and Organizations (UICO) and Jordan's Islamic opposition issued a joint statement in the Jordanian capital calling for setting them free.

Islamic Action Front (IAF) party chief Hamza Mansur and the UICO's head Mohamed Nur Dachan urged “the party holding Simona Toretta and Simona Pari, and the body of Enzo Baldoni, to deal with them in keeping with noble human values and release them immediately”.

Islamic scholars have repeated that Islam is against the kidnapping of innocent civilians or killing them.

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