A video grab from French TV channel LCI shows French intelligence agent (top R) who was kidnapped last month by hardline Islamists in Somalia, being helped out of a car after he escaped from his captors in Mogadishu, on August 26, 2009. (LCI/AFP)

MOGADISHU, August 26, 2009 (AFP) - A French intelligence agent kidnapped last month by hardline Islamists in Somalia said Wednesday he sneaked past his captors and walked to safety for five hours through the Mogadishu night.

Officials from the government and one of the groups involved in the kidnapping however said the agent owed his freedom after a six-week ordeal to intense negotiations and the payment of a ransom.

"I'm doing OK and, even if my month and a half in detention was horribly long, I was well treated. There was no torture, nor fake execution," the hostage, who gave his name as Marc, told Radio France International.

"On Tuesday, around midnight, I took advantage of my jailers falling asleep, tired out by Ramadan. I saw that my cell was badly closed and so I was able to make off without any violence," he said, according to the transcript of an interview with the station.

"In any case, if I'd fired a shot, other guards would have killed me. Then I walked through the night for almost five hours, guided by the stars to get to where I wanted to go," he said.

Somali Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gele initially announced in a press conference in Mogadishu that both French agents kidnapped on July 14 had been released, but within minutes told AFP that only one was free.

"My words are that one of two hostages kidnapped in Mogadishu last month is now in the hands of the government. He is safe and in good health," he said.

According to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the escaped French agent flew out of Mogadishu at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) and was headed to Nairobi.

"His small aircraft took off at 6:00 pm. I saw it. He told me he was going to Nairobi," Adolphe Manirakiza, spokesman for AMISOM's Burundian contingent, told AFP.

The French agents were snatched by gunmen from their hotel in the war-riven Somali capital on July 14. They were quickly separated, held by two hardline groups involved in a military offensive against the government.

The French authorities maintain that the pair, who according to several witnesses presented themselves as journalists while in Mogadishu, were on an advisory mission to the Somali transitional government.

One was believed to be held by the Shebab, an Al Qaeda-inspired group, the other by Hezb al-Islam, a more political movement led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former ally of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

"The hostage held by Hezb al-Islam was able to escape his kidnappers," foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier announced in Paris earlier.

"Despite certain allegations and rumours this happened without violence and France did not pay a ransom," he said.

Chevallier, who did not say whether another party might have paid a ransom, also said that the second hostage was "still being held".

Officials from Hezb al-Islam and the transitional federal government speaking on condition of anonymity said the hostage had been released in exchange for a ransom.

"Some government forces had been waiting for the release in the Gubta neighbourhood (in southern Mogadishu). He was handed over at around 4:00 am (0100 GMT) this morning," a senior Hezb al-Islam official told AFP.

"The French agent did not escape by himself. Some negotiations had been going on for a while between the government and Hezb al-Islam officials," a government official also said.

"The initial ransom demanded was five million dollars but the amount has decreased," the official explained.

He said that when talks stumbled, some Hezb al-Islam militants struck their own deal and organised the release without their leadership's authority.

The Shebab had said after the kidnapping that the pair would face a Sharia court for "spying and entering Somalia to assist the enemy of Allah."

If a deal was indeed struck, neither side was likely to advertise it.

Paying a ransom to extremist Islamic organisations with suspected links to Al Qaeda would be against French policy while the kidnappers themselves might not want to be seen as putting enrichment before jihad.

Armed Somali gangs have carried out scores of kidnappings in recent months, often targeting foreigners or Somalis working with international organisations to demand ransoms.