AFP – Kidnappers seized an Egyptian diplomat in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Friday, Libya’s foreign ministry said.
The diplomat was snatched from his house in Tripoli by an unknown group, Libyan foreign ministry spokesman Said Lassoued told AFP.
Lassoued said Libyan authorities were making “efforts to find the diplomat,” adding “reinforced security measures have been put in place around the Egyptian embassy”.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty also confirmed the report, saying “an administrative adviser was kidnapped”.
“The Egyptian embassy is in contact with the Libyan authorities,” he added.
A source in the mission in Tripoli told AFP that the man who was kidnapped was just an official with the embassy.
“He is not really a diplomat, even though he has a diplomatic passport,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, a security official in the Libyan capital would not rule out that the kidnapping was a response to the arrest on Friday of a prominent leader of a group of ex-rebels in Egypt.
Shaaban Hadeia, head of the Operations Centre of Libya’s Thuwar (revolutionaries), was arrested on Friday in the city of Alexandria on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the source added.
