The Taliban movement on Thursday set free Ahmad Riza, the Lebanese engineer of a Turkish construction company after the firm agreed to pull out from Afghanistan, according to a local newspaper report.

"Riza was released near a post of Afghan Communication Ministry in Shahjoi district of Zabul province around at 10 o'clock Thursday morning," Taliban's spokesman Latif Hakimi was quoted as saying.

Government circles here as well the Turkish company is tightlipped over the issue.

"The Interior Ministry in cooperation with elders of the area has been trying to secure the safe release of Riza since his abduction but has not received any information from local authorities," a spokesman of Interior Ministry Dad Mohammad Rasa told Xinhua.

However, Taliban's spokesman said that the hardliner movement through direct contact with the Turkish Construction Company decided to release the engineer after the company agreed to withdraw from the post-Taliban nation.

A Lebanese national, Riza, was abducted by Taliban last week near Zabul's provincial capital Qalat and the Taliban threatened to execute him if his company refuses to leave Afghanistan.

Riza' mother in talks with Arabic television Al-Arabia last night described her son as innocent and appealed for his release.

Remnants of the former regime who are branding western companies working under US clout in Afghanistan as spies of Washington, have taken hostages several staff of foreign firms since 2003 but released them unharmed either through deals or receiving ransom.

Source: Xinhua