CNN producer was freed by his captors

Palestinian gunmen freed an Israeli Arab producer for CNN television unharmed on Tuesday a day after kidnapping him in the Gaza Strip.

Riad Ali said his captors told him they were members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group in Palestinian President &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/30/42787.html' target=_blank>Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

But the Brigades issued a statement saying they had no connection to the abduction, and condemning it as an act of chaos that hurt the Palestinian cause.

"Of course I do not know if they were really from al-Aqsa or not," Ali said of his captors, who snatched him from a CNN car they stopped in &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2001/12/03/22774.html' target=_blank>Gaza City on Monday, Reuters informed.

"No accusation was addressed to me. They questioned me about my background as a member of (Israel's minority) Druze community and after they saw I had nothing to do with claims or concerns they had, they released me," he told reporters.