Tripoli:
Libya’s Olympic committee president was taken from his car by gunmen in Tripoli on Sunday and his whereabouts are unknown, colleagues said.
Nabeel Elalem was in his car with a colleague when two cars carrying men in military-style clothing blocked them off, another colleague, Arafat Jwan, said.
“They told him he was needed and he had to go with them. He asked if he could take his phone and laptop with him and then the cars sped away with him,” Jwan said, adding that Al Alem’s colleague was left in the car. It was not clear who the men were.
Ezz Al Deen Journaz, a spokesman for the committee, told an independent Libyan television channel that the men had claimed to be from the army and had asked him to come with them “politely”. He said the group of about eight or nine were armed.
Sports and Youth Minister Fethi Tarbel said he had been informed about the matter and called for Al Alem’s immediate release.
“We condemn this kind of action. Whoever did this are criminals,” he told Reuters by phone. “This goes against the revolution, this brings us back to the Gaddafi culture ... I don’t know if he had any issues with anyone.”
Since the end of last year’s uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, the interim government has struggled to control a myriad armed groups who refuse to lay down their weapons and often take the law into their own hands and detain people.
Meanwhile, two Libyan journalists kidnapped in a former stronghold of Gaddafi while covering the country’s elections last week have been released, a colleague and an official mediating in the stand-off said on Sunday.
Reporter-cameraman Abdul Qadir Fassouk and cameraman Yousuf Badi disappeared on July 7 near Bani Walid — one of the last Gaddafi strongholds to fall during an eight-month uprising.
The journalists, who work for the Misrata-based Tobacts TV station, had been covering Libya’s historic election for a 200-seat national assembly in the western town of Mizdah and were on their way back to Misrata when contact with them was lost.
“They have left Bani Walid by helicopter to Jadu and later on they will travel to Misrata,” said Fathi Yousuf, part of a team from the western town of Jadu which arrived in Bani Walid on Saturday to negotiate the journalists’ release.
Yousuf said some detainees from Bani Walid being held in Misrata would be released later as part of the negotiations.
Local media said the captors of the journalists demanded the release of detainees in Misrata in return for freeing them.
Omar Gadaj, director of news at Tobacts TV, confirmed his colleagues’ release. “Delegates from Jadu received them, they will be taken to Misrata later.”
A group of elders had met Prime Minister Abdur Rahim Al Keib on Saturday night to discuss the journalists.
Talks to free them collapsed last week hours before a deadline given by a militia in Misrata for their release was due to be reached. The militia had threatened to attack Bani Walid and free the men by force.
“We have agreed that we need to find a solution for this not to happen again. Elders from Bani Walid and Misrata will meet to discuss and try to solve the problems,” Jibril Grimida, a spokesman for Bani Walid local council, said on Sunday.
