By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 30 September 2014:
Writer and activist Faraj Abualeshah who was freed yesterday after being seized by gunmen . . .[restrict]in central Tripoli last Wednesday says that he believes he was kidnapped to order by unknown militants and was convinced that he would be beheaded.
On his Facebook page he says that he had been surrounded while at a café in downtown Tripoli by four “nervous” young gunmen. The group had arrived in six cars and the leader had ordered him to leave with them otherwise there would be trouble. He was taken to a prison where others being held. He did not know where it was although, because of the time take to get there, he believed it was certainly in Tripoli. In the prison, he says, he was better treated than the other prisoners. This was because he knew one of his guards – a fellow prisoner with him when both had been jailed by the Qaddafi regime.
While held, he says, he overheard a telephone conversation in which his captors said that they had a “package” waiting for them and asking when they would come to pick it up. He believed he was the “package”.
During the six days of his incarceration, he revealed, his captors accused of being a spy for Khalifa Hafter, the leader of Operation Dignity in the east of the country. As a result, he feared that he would end up being beheaded.
He attributes his release to public pressure in Tripoli and elsewhere in the country to free him. [/restrict]
