By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.
Tripoli, 26 March 2014:
The head of the Central Bank of Libya’s media office, Essam Al-Oul, . . .[restrict]kidnapped on Monday has freed but not before being shot and tortured by his abductors.
Having been grabbed at gunpoint by three gunmen in front of his home in Tripoli’s Salahadeen district, he was driven off, blindfolded, to an unknown location, he said.
“At first the kidnappers were talking about a ransom for my release. Then they demanded I say that some officials of the Central Bank of Libya were collaborating with members of the former regime.”
The kidnappers tried to force him to accuse certain Central Bank staff, whom they named, of being former regime associates, he said.
“When I refused, they started to torture, beat and strangled me. They even used electricity on me as part of the torture,” he explained.
He had been shot in the leg as part of his ordeal, he said.
Refuting claims that he was freed by security forces, as claimed on some social media sites, he said no one was involved in freeing him. The kidnappers dumped him blindfolded and his hands tied by the side of the road last night in the capital’s Suq Assabit suburb. Local residents found and helped him before the arrival of security men who had been looking for him and who then took him home. [/restrict]
