Image via Yahoo News Canada

John Solecki, the CC and SIPA graduate who was kidnapped in Pakistan two months ago, has been released, according to CBS News.

Prior to his capture, Solecki worked as the head of the UN refugee office in Quetta, Pakistan; on the 2nd of February, 2009, members of the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) kidnapped Solecki and killed his Pakistani driver.  In exchange for his release, they demanded that the Pakistani government liberate over 1,000 pro-Baluchistan activists.

The circumstances under which the BLUF freed Solecki are still unclear, but CBS has a quote from an anonymous Western diplomat who says that the “‘release could not have been made possible without some trade-off. I am certain Solecki is a free man but in the process the Pakistanis must have released some people sought by nationalists from Baluchistan.'”