Tripoli: Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was kidnapped from his Tripoli hotel at dawn on Thursday by an armed group and taken to an unknown location, the government and sources said.
“The head of the transitional government, Ali Zeidan, was taken to an unknown destination for unknown reasons by a group” of men believed to be former rebels, the government said in a brief statement on its website.
A source in the prime minister’s office said Zeidan had been kidnapped from Tripoli’s Corinthia hotel, where he resides. The abduction comes five days after US commandos seized senior Al-Qaeda figure Abu Anas al-Libi — indicted for the twin 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa — off the streets of Tripoli and whisked him away to a warship.
The government said it suspected two groups of ex-rebels, the chamber of revolutionaries and the brigade for the fight against crime, which in principle fall under the defence and interior ministries, of being behind the kidnapping.
The cabinet and the General National Congress, Libya’s top political authority, were dealing with the situation the statement said, while calling on citizens to remain calm. Saturday’s raid by US commandos in Tripoli has embarrassed and put the Libyan government under pressure from its critics — in particular some former rebel groups in the 2011 revolt that ousted and killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
A source in the premier’s office said Zeidan had been taken from Tripoli’s Corinthia Hotel, where he resides.
“A large number of armed men entered the place very early on Thursday. But we did not know what was happening,” a hotel employee told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A group of former rebels, which had roundly denounced Libi’s abduction and blamed Zeidan’s government for it, said it had “arrested” Zeidan.
The Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries, which in principle reports to the defence and interior ministries, said on Facebook it had seized Zeidan “on the prosecutor’s orders”. The premier “was arrested under the Libyan penal code… on the instructions of the public prosecutor”, the group said.
It said he was detained for “crimes and offences prejudicial to the state” and its security.
The cabinet said on its Facebook page that ministers were “unaware of immunity being lifted or of any arrest warrant” for the prime minister.
The Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries had expressed outrage at the brazen daylight raid by US commandos to capture Libi. It said on Tuesday it had told its fighters to be prepared for orders to “hunt down and expel foreigners who are illegally in the country”.
Today’s government statement said it suspected two groups of ex-rebels, the Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries and the Brigade for the Fight against Crime, of being behind the abduction.
The cabinet and the General National Congress, Libya’s top political authority, were dealing with the situation, the statement said, while calling on citizens to remain calm. Zeidan, who was named prime minister a year ago, had on Tuesday condemned the US raid and insisted that all Libyans should be tried on home soil. (AFP)
