AQIM to free Brit for safe exit of Qatada

DAKAR: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb offered to free a British-South African hostage if London allows radical cleric Abu Qatada to choose a country for his extradition, US monitoring service SITE said.

"The group said that it will release Stephen Malcolm... if Britain will extradite Abu Qatada to a country involved in the Arab Spring or to any country he chooses," SITE said of the man abducted in November in Mali.