Tunis // Tunisia said it was shutting its consulate in Libya as 10 staff members abducted by an armed militia in Tripoli returned home on Friday after a week in captivity.
The staff were seized by gunmen who burst into the consulate in the Libyan capital, in the latest attack targeting foreign citizens and diplomatic missions in the lawless nation.
Libya descended into chaos after a revolt unseated and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
It now has rival governments and parliaments, as well as powerful militias battling for influence and a share of its oil wealth, including the Libya Dawn militia alliance that controls Tripoli.
The Tunisian foreign minister Taieb Baccouche said the decision to shut the consulate was taken after the kidnapping.
“We will not reopen the consulate as long as protection for our civil servants is not guaranteed,” Mr Baccouche said.
He was speaking at the L’Aouina military airport in Tunis, where several of the freed hostages arrived on Friday morning.
Jamal Saibi described how a group of armed men stormed the consulate last week, rounding him and his colleagues up.
“They took us out of the building, put us in cars and drove us somewhere along the airport road,” he said.
Mr Saibi said they were abducted because the gunmen wanted to press Tunisian authorities to released a jailed militia chief, Walid Glib.
Tunisian officials and media reported that Glib, who was arrested last month in connection with “terrorist” activity, would be deported as part of a deal with the kidnappers.
The spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Karim Chebbi, said the “criminal division of the Tunisian Court of Appeal on Wednesday decided on his provisional expulsion at the request of the Libyan authorities”.
Media said Glib was deported early on Friday.
Mr Baccouche denied any deal was struck with the kidnappers in exchange for the release of the consular workers.
He said the case of Glib, who was arrested in May when he arrived in Tunisia, was in the “hands of the judiciary”.
Last month, militiamen allegedly linked to Glib seized 245 Tunisians in Tripoli to press for his release. They subsequently freed them unharmed.
* Agence France-Presse
