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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 8 April 2018:
The bodies of the three kidnapped Shershary children from Surman were found yesterday buried in woods south of the city.
The Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) Western Branch found the bodies as a result of their ongoing investigations into the children’s kidnappings.
In a statement, the CID said that they thought that the children were murdered prior to being buried that the search for the burial place been carried out with the notification and attendance of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the forensic physician and the criminal photographer.
It will be recalled that the three young children of a prominent Surman businessman were seized by gunmen in broad daylight in December 2015.
In a hail of gunfire, six kidnappers had shot and wounded the driver of the family vehicle before abducting the children of Riad Abdul Hameed Ali Shershary. The attack, which had happened at traffic lights in the town’s main street, was carried out in full view of passers-by.
The kidnappers had driven away with their victims in four Chevrolets with darkened windows.
Riad Shershary is the brother of former GNC member for Surman, Adel Abdul Hameed Ali Shershary.
In January 2016 armed authorities had surrounded a house believed to be the site where the three Sabratha Shershary kidnapped children were being held.
A standoff had ensued with exchange of gunfire at a house believed to have belonged to the Nimri family in the Nimri estate of the Beach club area of Surman.
The action by the armed authorities come after one of the alleged organisers of the kidnapping of the three Sabratha Shershary children had revealed in a video confession some of the details of the crime.
The video confession was made on the Facebook page of the Counter Kidnapping and Extortion Crimes Committee of Saratha Municipality Council. The arrests had come as part of a concerted effort by Sabratha and Surman to counter the numerous cases of kidnappings in the area.
The video confessor, Abdelbasset Sassi-Daw, who had claimed to have organized main parts of the kidnapping, said he had organized and carried out the kidnapping with accomplices from Zawia.
Although he was not, Sassi-Daw had revealed that he had chosen accomplices from Zawiya who were all former convicts. He had explained that his accomplices were all suspects and could only move about at night, whereas he had been free to move about during the day.
He had explained how he taught his accomplices their way around the streets and roads of Sabratha, and had suggested names of rich families in Sabratha. He pointed out to his accomplices where they lived too.
He explained that they chose the city of Sabratha in order to throw suspicion away from them and their cities of Surman and Zawyia onto IS, believed to be present in the city.
For the same reason, they only phoned the children’s family from Sabratha. He reported how he bought the children chocolates and Play Station discs. Sassi-Dow confirmed that they had asked the family for an LD 20 million ransom (about US$ 15 million at the official exchange rate).
The plan began to unravel as a result of Sabratha Council’s intense effort to recover the kidnapped children. When one of the kidnapping gang members was arrested by investigating authorities, the gang panicked and moved the children from Zawiya to Surman.
Sassi-Daw admitted that he was involved in transporting the children from Zawiya to Surman in a blacked-out BMW where they were kept at the one of the Nimri’s house.
The Nimries are a well know militia or armed gang in the Surman / Sabratha area notorious for their numerous armed criminal activities.
Shershary family members had told Libya Herald weeks ago that they had always suspected that the Nemri gang was involved in the kidnapping of their children, but had refrained from going public in fear for the children’s safety.
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