October 01, 2008	Wednesday	Shawwal 1, 1429

BERLIN, Sept 30: Europeans and other captives returned home on Tuesday from Egypt where they had been held hostage by bandits for 10 days, amid conflicting accounts of their liberation.

Five Germans had been greeted by their families and senior officials when they landed in a chartered plane at Berlin’s Tegel airport from Cairo after being released with 14 other hostages on Monday, the foreign ministry said.

“The state secretaries expressed their relief about the safe return of the holiday makers,” the ministry said in a statement.

Also on board were special forces from the German army, members of the GSG 9 special operations unit, federal police officers, staff from the Federal Crime Office and logistical support staff from the THW federal relief agency, the ministry said.

Five Italians also returned home safely early on Tuesday.

The Europeans were part of a group of 19 hostages that also included a Romanian and eight Egyptian drivers and tour guides seized by bandits while on safari in a lawless area of Egypt’s south-western desert on Sept 19.

Officials in Cairo had said the hostages were freed unharmed in a pre-dawn raid Monday by Egyptian special forces.

Defence Minister Hussein Tantawi said “half of the kidnappers were eliminated” in the raid by about 30 Egyptian special forces with Italian and German special forces on standby.

However, this was disputed by European officials who said there had been little or no violence.—AP?