Freed Belgian, Italian recount Syria kidnap ordeal

Freed Italian journalist Domenico Quirico and Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin spoke Monday of the "very tough" conditions of their five-month kidnap ordeal in Syria, saying they were subjected to violence, humiliation and mock executions. The two men, who were released on Sunday, also said they had overheard their captors talking about possible rebel involvement in a poison-gas attack near Damascus, although Quirico said he had no way of verifying that information. Scant detail has emerged of the circumstances of their ordeal, but Quirico's newspaper said Italy's secret services had stepped up efforts to secure their freedom ahead of feared US military strikes. "We are okay despite the torture we suffered," Piccinin told Belgium's Bel RTL radio station. "There was sometimes real violence ... humiliation, bullying, mock executions ... Domenico faced two mock executions, with a revolver," he said. A gaunt and tired Quirico and a heavily bearded Piccinin were seen late on Sunday stepping off an Italian government plane in Rme. "I have lived for five months as if I was on Mars. I was badly treated and scared," Quirico told reporters. On Monday he met with Prime Minister Enrico Letta, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino and prosecutors in Rome investigating his case and was expected to travel later in the day to Turin in northern Italy where La Stampa, the newspaper he works for, is based. Quirico told prosecutors he and Piccinin were stopped by gunmen in two pick-up trucks, Italian news agency ANSA reported. "The first days we were blindfolded. There were maybe three groups that handled us," the veteran war reporter was quoted as saying. "The conditions in which we were held were very tough from the start. We were given food at best once a day," he also said, ANSA reported. In an article published on La Stampa's online edition, he was also quoted casting doubt on claims made by Piccinin about a conversation they overheard about an alleged rebel role in the use of chemical weapons. "From a room where we were being held and through a half-open door one day we overheard a conversation in English via Skype involving three people whose identities I do not know," he said. "In the conversation, they were saying that the gas operation in two suburbs of Damascus was carried out by rebels as a provocation to force the West to intervene militarily," he said. "I am absolutely not able to say if this conversation was based on real facts or on hearsay," he said. Piccinin, a history teacher in a southern Belgian town, had claimed the conversation proved that Syrian regime forces were not involved in the attack. A source close to the Belgian government told AFP that Piccinin's comments "engage only him personally". Piccinin said he and Quirico were initially picked up in April by the Western-backed Free Syrian Army who then handed them over to the Abu Ammar brigade, a rebel group "more bandit than Islamist". Their detention proved to be "a terrifying odyssey across Syria," he told Bel RTL. "We were moved around a lot... it was not always the same group that held us, there were very violent groups, very anti-West and some anti-Christian." Piccinin said they tried to escape twice, once while their captors were at prayer, but they were tracked down after two days and "seriously punished." Piccinin, an Arabic speaker who has travelled to Syria seven times since the conflict broke out in 2011, said the rebel cause had changed, descending into banditry. The concern on the part of Italian authorities had been that as the possibility of US-led air strikes on Syria increases, "the frontline could move rapidly and contact could be lost with kidnappers," it said. The media rights watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) says 13 journalists are still missing in Syria. Among the kidnapped are two French journalists, Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and US journalist James Foley, who had been working for Global Post, Agence France-Presse and other international media. Italy is also still trying to free another one of its nationals missing in Syria since July, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, a Jesuit priest who has lived in Syria for many years to promote inter-religious dialogue.