By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab and Aimen Eljali.
Tripoli, 2 September 2013:
Anoud Senussi, Abduallah Senussi’s daughter, was kidnapped by gunmen late this afternoon just . . .[restrict]after she was released from prison.
According to the Justice Minister, Salah Marghani, she was seized just 100 metres from the women’s section of Ruhaimi Prison at Ain Zara after the convoy she was being transported in was attacked by an unknown armed gang. It had been a well executed plan, he said.
In a statement, elders from the Megraha tribe, of which her family is a member, have accused the Judicial Police of collusion in her abduction; it provides prison security and is responsible for transporting prisoners. The statement says that the attack could not have happened without the Judicial Police’s help, citing as evidence the fact that they had requested to take her from prison but had been refused.
They have given the authorities three days to secure her release.
Marghani has called her kidnapping “a slap in the face of the 17 February Revolution” and that he expected help from everyone “especially the thuwar” to find and free her.
Anoud was arrested in a Tripoli hotel on 6 October after she had entered Libya earlier in the day from Algeria, allegedly on a forged passport. It bore the name Anoud Abdullah Mohamed.
Entering the country on a forged document is a crime under Article 350 of the Libyan Penal Code.
A week ago, the Justice Minister said that preparations were in place to release her, now that she had served 10 months in prison. The announcement surprised many as she had never publicly been found guilty of the charges against her and sentenced.
Despite her incarceration, Anoud was allowed occasionally to visit her father in his prison. [/restrict]
