No ransom paid for al Qaeda's Swiss hostage - Mali

BAMAKO, July 13 (Reuters) - Mali did not pay a ransom to secure the release of a Swiss hostage who had been held in the Sahara by Al Qaeda's North African wing, President Amadou Toumani Toure said on Monday.

Werner Greiner, the last of four Westerners captured in January that the group had been holding, was freed at the weekend, Mali said, without giving details of the circumstances of the release.

Governments rarely if ever confirm money has changed hands, but analysts say Westerners taken hostage in the Sahara have in the past been freed after ransoms reaching into the millions of dollars have been paid.

"If you ask the question, 'did Mali go with a case of money to pay a ransom?' I say 'no'," Toure told a news conference at which a tired-looking Greiner was present, but did not speak.

Greiner, along with a Briton, a German and another Swiss, was captured in late January after attending a cultural festival on the Mali-Niger border.

The German and Swiss nationals, both women, were freed while Briton Edwin Dyer was killed by his Islamist captors in May.

Swiss radio reported on Sunday that no ransom had been paid, and Greiner's released had been secured through talks.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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