BERLIN: Germany officials said Wednesday they could not confirm reports from Afghanistan that a German journalist working for the Stern newsmagazine had been kidnapped and released, and Stern said he had never been kidnapped.
Instead, officials in Afghanistan said a Danish journalist of Afghan origin had escaped a kidnapping attempt.
Stern said journalist Christoph Reuter, subject of the initial reports, had sent a text message that he was not kidnapped, according to a magazine spokeswoman who would not give her name, while German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said that "regarding the missing Stern reporter Reuter, I cannot confirm that he is free again. "
"The picture is very unclear... We cannot confirm what we are hearing from Afghanistan."
Last week, two German engineers were kidnapped in the country, one of whom who died while in custody. Ruediger Diedrich, 43, died under unclear circumstances while in captivity.
His body will be flown back to Germany on Thursday for an autopsy to determine a cause of death, Jaeger said Tuesday, while efforts to release a second German are continuing.
Several Germans have been kidnapped in Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, but Diedrich is the first known to have died while in captivity. Twenty-five German soldiers have died while on duty in Afghanistan.
