Sergio Zanotti, Syrian businessman, was released in Syria and kidnapped three years ago

The Italian Sergio Zanotti, kidnapped in Syria three years ago, has been released and will return to Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced Friday in the coming days.

Zanotti, a 56-year-old businessman from the Brescia region, has been kidnapped since April 2016 during a business trip to Turkey near the Syrian border.

"Sergio Zanotti is in good general health and after a complex activity of information, investigation and diplomacy conducted in a synergistic way, we have obtained his release," said Italian Prime Minister Conté. He added: "This is a great success for our institutions, and especially for the AISE (external spy agency)." I express my deepest gratitude to you..

At the time when he was kidnapped by a group linked to al Qaeda, the hostage appeared in two videos, the last one in May 2017 and another few months ago, kneeling, dressed in a suit. a tunic and wearing a long white beard, asking the intervention of his government to prevent his execution, while behind him a masked and armed man was watching him.

"We are on May 1. I'm calling Zanotti, Sergio, this is the second call I have to make," he said in the most recent video. Behind him appeared two men with covered faces, dressed in black and each holding a rifle.

According to the ex-wife of the businessman, the man would have left in April 2016 for Turkey, in a region close to the border with Syria. It is there that he lost the notion of the obligation to compel his family to report his disappearance. "I am happy, but I do not know anything else, I expect," said Zanotti's sister after the announcement of this release, according to the newspaper. The Republic. "I'm very happy," she says through her tears.