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By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, 25 January 2014:
The kidnappers of five Egyptian diplomatic staff who were abducted last night and this morning, . . .[restrict]tonight gave the Egyptian government 24 hours to release the arrested head of the Libyan Revolutionaries Operation Room (LROR).
The kidnappers phoned the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya this evening and put several of the Egyptian diplomatic staff on the line. They gave their names and ages, and confirmed they had been taken from their homes in Tripoli.
One of the kidnappers then told the presenter that their demand was the immediate release of LROR head Shaban Hadia Al-Zawi, who was arrested in Alexandria on Friday night. Egyptian media have said that Zawi was arrested on suspicion of being affiliated with Al-Qaeda and for possession of foreign currencies, documents and CDs.
The kidnapper said that the group would give the Egyptian government twenty-four hours to release Zway, before the line went dead.
After the call, the presenter called the spokesman for the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Badr Abdulaati, who said that Zawi was being held while investigations were ongoing. “If he is found to be innocent, he will be released, otherwise he will be put on trial,” Abdulaati said. “We are a country of law and we are treating him very well and with respect.”
He said that the Egyptian authorities had not had any contact with the kidnappers. They were working only with the Libyan government, Abdulaati said, and had spoken to Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and the Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Abdulaziz. [/restrict]
