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By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 1 August 2014:
At a press conference held today at the Rixos Conference Hall (the former home of the . . .[restrict]GNC in Tripoli) attended by the Libya Herald, former Deputy Prime Minister and briefly Prime Minister-designate and now newly elected House of Representatives member Mustafa Abushagur accused Zintani militias of having kidnapped him.
Abushagur, who was kidnapped on Tuesday and was released nine hours later early on Wednesday morning, named the Zintani militia group as Barq Al-Nasr (Victory Lightening).
The former Deputy Prime Minister was kidnapped from his house after lunch in a vehicle that resembled an ambulance and taken to what seemed like a barracks in the Swani area of Tripoli, he said.
His inquisitor kept asking him to discose information without specifying what, he said. He was also accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he denied. Asked by his abductors if he supported Hafter’s Dignity operation, Abushagur said he supported no operations outside the state, he added.
The House of Representative member said that his abductors accused him of being rich and asked him for LD 20 million.
He stressed that his kidnappers did not physically harm him and stressed that he did not think that the militia that kidnapped him represented their town but themselves only.
In the short period of his kidnapping Abushagur said that he was unable to establish the reason for his abduction.
He was suddenly and inexplicably released when another Zintani militia mysteriously freed him, he said.
Mustafa Abushagur refused to take any questions at the end of reading a pre-prepared statement including any questions on the fighting in Tripoli or why he would not be at tomorrow’s House of Representatives meeting in Tobruk.
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