Freed Italy reporter saw Afghan driver's beheading

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian reporter who was held by the Taliban for nearly two weeks described on Tuesday how he was forced to watch the beheading of his Afghan driver.

"I can still see it now," Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was released on Monday, wrote in La Repubblica, his newspaper.

"The (Taliban) commander issued his death sentence in the name of Islam. He said we were all spies and we had to die," Mastrogiacomo writes.

"(The translator) is crying. I don't understand. I ask him what they said and he, in tears, says 'they are going to kill us'," he writes.

"I get off my knees. Four young men grab the driver and shove his face into the sand. They cut his throat and continue until they have cut his whole head."

"He is not able to make a gasp. They clean the knife on his tunic. They tie his severed head to his body. They bring it (the body and head) to the river and let it go," he writes.

Mastrogiacomo spent the night in hospital after being freed by the Taliban following almost two weeks in captivity, accused of spying and threatened with execution himself.

The Taliban say he was freed after the Afghan government handed over four of five insurgent leaders, including the brother of military commander Mullah Dadullah.

Another Italian journalist, Gabriele Torsello, was kidnapped in Helmand in October and held for three weeks before being released unharmed.