Italian Red Cross worker freed after 6 months

MANILA (4th Update) -- Abu Sayyaf bandits freed an ailing Italian Red Cross worker Sunday from six months of jungle captivity in the province of Sulu, officials said.

Eugenio Vagni, 63, appeared to be in good health but tired as Abu Sayyaf gunmen handed him over to a provincial vice governor shortly after midnight in a jungle near Maimbung township on southern Jolo Island, officials said.

In Vatican City, Pope Benedict XVI felt relieved that the abduction was over and took Vagni's release as a "sign of hope and of faith," Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was quoted as saying.