KABUL: A man claiming to have kidnapped an Italian aid worker in Afghanistan said on Friday he had killed her, but a government spokesman said she was still alive. Clementina Cantoni, 32, who works for the CARE International aid agency, was snatched on Monday when four gunmen stopped her vehicle on a central Kabul street and bundled her into a white Toyota car.

Ms Cantoni’s abduction raised fresh fears among Kabul’s 2,000-strong foreign community of Iraq-style kidnappings by anti-government groups, but officials said the kidnapper was Timoor Shah, the leader of a criminal gang.

Timoor Shah, who has claimed in several conversations with media to be holding Ms Cantoni, said he had killed her after President Hamid Karzai’s government rejected his demands. “We strangled her with a rope at nine o’clock last night,” said Mr Shah, who was contacted on Ms Cantoni’s mobile phone number.—Reuters