Telegraph

(Filed: 27/11/2001)

THE Taliban have kidnapped and threatened to kill a Canadian journalist in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak..

Guardian newspaper reporter Jonathan Steele said freelance journalist Ken Hetchman was being kept in a small cell bound hand and foot.

Mr Steele said a Pashtun man gave him one of Hetchman's business cards with an appeal for help. The Pashtun man told Steele that the Taliban had warned "that when we surrender, if we do not get money, maybe we will kill you because these are the people we do not like."

Hetchman, who has worked for the Montreal Mirror and is aged around 30, met Steele while the pair were staying together at the same hotel in Chaman three days ago.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001