By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 23 August 2015:
UNSMIL has secured the release of a Libyan journalist seized shortly after he returned to Tripoli’s . . .[restrict]Mitiga airport from a UN meeting in Tunis.
Reda Fahail Al-Boum had been attending a two-day conference of Libyan civil society activists. He said that on Friday he was met at the airport by family members. However, shortly after driving away, their vehicle was force to stop by armed men in two cars without registration plates.
Fahail Al-Boum was grabbed and taken to somewhere in Mitiga where he was verbally-abused, beaten and threatened with rape. It was reported that during his two-hour ordeal, he had pistol muzzles pushed into his face and body. On a social media page, he explained that his abductors were angry because of comments he had made at the Tunis meeting.
His distraught relatives contacted UNSMIL. Today a mission spokesman confirmed to the Libya Herald, that it had intervened. “As in all other cases of similar detentions,” he said, “the Mission made the necessary contacts to know his whereabouts and ensure his immediate release and safe return to his family”.
Boum, who is from Zawia, is now a freelance journalist and a member of the Independent Libyan Journalists’ Syndicate. He previously worked for Zawia TV and Deutsche Welle.
It is claimed that when he arrived in Tripoli on an UNSMIL aircraft with a group of conference attendees, some of his fellow passengers spoke to security staff about comments on the political situation that he had made in Tunis. This then led to the gunmen trailing and ambushing the vehicle in which he was travelling.
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