Al Qaeda's North African wing has freed a Swiss hostage it has been holding in the Sahara since January, a spokesman for Mali's president said on Sunday.
"We can confirm that the Swiss (hostage) has been freed," Seydou Cissouma, a spokesman for Mali's president, told Reuters without giving any further details of the release. Werner Greiner was captured in late January with three other Westerners while attending a music festival near the Niger-Mali border. Two women in the group were later freed before Edwin Dyer, a British man, was killed in May.