TRIPOLI, Libya, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Four Italian journalists kidnapped near Tripoli and turned over to Moammar Gadhafi loyalists have been freed, the Italian Ministry said Thursday.
The reporters were abducted Wednesday and released Thursday in the Libyan capital, the Italian news service ANSA reported.
One of the journalists managed to contact an Italian newspaper, where an editor reported the four had been beaten and one of their drivers had been killed, CNN reported.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari said the four reporters were kidnapped on a road about 50 miles from Tripoli.
Paolo Alfieri, foreign editor of the newspaper Avvenire, told CNN the journalists were traveling from Zawiyah toward Tripoli when they were stopped at a roadblock.
