By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.
Tripoli, 29 July 2014:
Former Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur has been kidnapped according to reports, although it has not . . .[restrict]been confirmed.
Abushagur, who was elected in Suq Al-Juma last month as one its five members of the new House of Representatives, is said by an intelligence source to have been seized late this afternoon by a group who went to his house in Hay Al-Andalus in an ambulance and forced him at gunpoint to get in, in front of his wife and a relative.
According to the source, another group, claiming to be involved in security, had gone to his home earlier and advised him to leave because it was not safe for him to stay. He had refused. He had then phoned those the group were supposedly working for but was told no one had been sent.
The family member who witnessed the abduction tried to follow the ambulance, but two other vehicles moved in and blocked the road.
It is not known who was responsible. However, it is thought that the real target is the new House of Representatives. Abushagur won the largest number of votes of any candidate in the country on the general list – 14,305 – and was widely expected to be elected President of the House when it first meets on 4 August.
There were already concerns that some militants in Libya would try to prevent it from meeting and functioning. Other members of the House are now seen as being at high risk.
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