A Libyan government official was released Monday evening August 16, about two weeks after his kidnapping in Tripoli by unidentified gunmen, AFP learned Tuesday from corroborating sources.
Read also: Libya: a government official kidnapped in Tripoli, according to the UN
Rida Faraj Fraitis, chief of staff of one of Libya's two deputy prime ministers, and one of his colleagues were abducted on August 2 in broad daylight in the capital, according to the UN mission in Libya (Manul). Images released on Tuesday by the government's Facebook page show him being greeted by several local officials in his town of Benghazi (east). The government gave no indication of the identity of the kidnappers, nor of the fate of Rida's colleague Faraj Fraitis.
Reached by AFP, an official at the Interior Ministry said that Rida Faraj Fraitis was released on Monday evening and that he “
suffered no violence
” during his kidnapping. The UN mission in Libya had previously
expressed
"
concern
"
that
"
individuals who have assumed roles in support of the democratic transition in Libya and state institutions are being targeted in this way
", by worrying about the consequences of such acts on the ongoing reconciliation process.
Libya is trying to extricate itself from a decade of bloody violence since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, a chaos marked in recent years by the existence of rival powers in the East and the West. After the end of the fighting in the summer of 2020, a unified and transitional government was formed at the beginning of the year under the aegis of the UN, to lead the country to legislative and presidential elections scheduled for December. Despite the progress made at the political level, the security situation nevertheless remains precarious in the rich oil-producing country undermined by the weight of militias and the presence of foreign mercenaries.