By Tom Westcott and Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, 7 September 2013:
Justice Minister Salah Marghani yesterday said that former spy chief Abdullah Senussi’s . . .[restrict]daughter Anoud is still being held by her kidnappers, contrary to earlier reports that she had been been found and freed.
“As soon as the convoy left the prison she was kidnapped and it turned out to be someone who is now saying they kidnapped her to protect her,” Marghani told the Libya Herald.
The minister hinted that negotiations with the kidnappers were taking place. “I’m not commenting on this thing now until it ends,” he said, “it’s at a critical point and I don’t want to cause harm to anybody.”
“It’s not to clear to me what happened,” Marghani said, adding that he could not comment further on the case.
No-one seems to be prepared to say exactly what happened or what the current situation is. Senussi was released on Monday, after being held in jail for ten months after entering the country on a false passport. She left the Al-Ruwaimi prison in Ain Zara in a three-car convoy, which included the deputy justice minister, but was kidnapped almost immediately.
Congressman Abdul Hadi Ahmed Ashrief told the Libya Herald on Wednesday that the 20-year old had been taken by men from the First Special Unit of the SSC for her own protection. He added that she was now in Tripoli with family members but was expected to join her mother in either Mauritania or Egypt within a matter of days.
In an recorded interview, Senussi is heard saying that the men took her for her own protection. “They took me to protect me, afraid that people from any other side might kidnap me,” she said, adding that they had “treated me like their sister.”
Sources close to negotiations to resolve the issue have told the Libya Herald that there were disagreements within the ministry over the handling of Senussi’s release. The plan, the source said, had been for the deputy minister to take Senussi from the prison to a TV station for her to then speak of her treatment over the past ten months before then being taken to the airport to board a plane for Cairo.
With input from Ahmed Elumami. [/restrict]
