Canadian journalist freed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A Canadian Broadcasting Corp. correspondent who had been held in Afghanistan for four weeks has been released, the CBC said Saturday.

Mellissa Fung "is now safe and in reasonable health," Hubert T. Lacroix, CBC/Radio Canada's president and chief executive officer, said in Toronto.

"She is being examined by Canadian medical staff in Kabul," Lacroix said. She will soon be flown to the Middle East before returning to Canada, he said.

The circumstances of Fung's release were unclear and the identity of her kidnappers unknown.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and CBC officials said no ransom was paid, and CBC News Publisher John Cruickshank said it would be "unwise to even to speculate" as to the kidnappers' identity.

She was kidnapped October 12 after being in Kabul for about a month, Cruickshank said at the news conference. The kidnappers seized her as she left a U.N. refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul.

"This facility was not judged to be a dangerous place," Cruickshank said.

She was working on a story on refugees in and around the Afghan capital. As she returned to her vehicle from the camp that afternoon, kidnappers "overpowered her, her fixer and driver and fled the scene," he said.

The fixer -- a local employee of CBC -- immediately informed authorities, and the news was passed to CBC, Cruickshank said.

Harper, whom Cruickshank said became involved with Fung's case the day she was kidnapped, thanked Afghan President Hamid Karzai for his cooperation in securing her release.

"This is wonderful news for her family, for her colleagues and for all Canadians," the prime minister said in Ottawa. He said that he had spoken to her and that she sounded "in remarkably good spirits, under the circumstances."

He added, "I didn't press her for too many details of her own story."

News of her abduction was not reported until her release.

"In the interest of Mellissa's safety and that of other working journalists in the region, on the advice of security experts, we made the decision to ask media colleagues not to publish news of her abduction," Cruickshank said.

"All of the efforts made by the security experts were focused on Mellissa's safe and timely release. For this reason, we can only share general information about the events of the last three weeks."

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