Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has called for “rationality and wisdom” after being freed from the custody of militiamen.
Ali Zeidan was abducted from a Tripoli hotel and held for several hours by armed men whose identity has yet to be confirmed.
In a cabinet meeting, PM Ali Zeidan thanked “real revolutionaries” who took part in a security operation to free him.
The motive of the abduction is unclear but some militias had been angered by a US commando raid to capture senior al-Qaeda suspect Anas al-Liby.
Many militia groups saw the raid in Tripoli on Saturday as a breach of Libyan sovereignty and there is growing pressure on the government to explain if it was involved.
One group, the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR), said it had captured Ali Zeidan, claiming it was acting on orders from the prosecutor general. But the justice ministry denied this.
The LROR said its actions had not been related to Anas al-Liby’s detention.
The official Lana news agency also named another formal rebel group, the Brigade for the Fight against Crime, as being involved.
Ali Zeidan has called for “rationality and wisdom” after being freed from the custody of militiamen
Two years after the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya still has no constitution and divisions between secular and Islamist forces have paralyzed parliament.
The government has been struggling to contain the numerous militias who control many parts of the country.
Ali Zeidan’s cabinet meeting following his release was shown live on Libya’s al-Ahrar television.
He thanked those who had helped free him but gave no details about them or the abductors.
He said: “I salute the revolutionaries who had an important role. The real revolutionaries, those who rose above greedy demands, I salute them for what they did in this affair.”
Ali Zeidan urged them to “assimilate into the state, and play an active role in it through its civilian and military institutions”.
He added: “Only with an army and the police can a state exist.”
The prime minister said of his capture: “These are accidental things from the revolution’s overflow and they will disappear.”
Ali Zeidan also said Libya would “regain its health” and be “an active, positive nation”.
He assured foreigners the incident had happened “within the context of Libyan political wrangles”.
Ali Zeidan ended by calling for “caution and rationality in handling this matter”.
He had been taken in a pre-dawn raid on the Corinthia Hotel by more than 100 armed men.
Photographs circulating online showed Ali Zeidan being surrounded and led away. There were no reports of violence during his capture.
The prime minister was reportedly held at the interior ministry anti-crime department in Tripoli, where an official said he was treated well.
In a news conference shortly before the release was announced, the government condemned the “criminal act” of his detention and said it would not give in to “blackmail”.
The LROR is one of a number of militias operating in Libya which are nominally attached to government ministries but often act independently and, correspondents say, often have the upper hand over police and army forces.
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General Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina’s former military leader, has died aged 87 while serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
Jorge Rafael Videla is reported to have died from natural causes in prison.
The general was jailed in 2010 for the deaths of 31 dissidents during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, of which he was overall leader until 1981.
Up to 30,000 people were tortured and killed during this period, in a campaign known as the “Dirty War”.
Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla had been sentenced to life in prison for torture, murder and other crimes in 1985, but was pardoned in 1990 under an amnesty given by the president at the time, Carlos Menem.
In April 2010, the Supreme Court upheld a 2007 federal court move to overturn his pardon.
Eight months later Jorge Rafael Videla was found “criminally responsible” for the torture and deaths of 31 prisoners and jailed for life.
Most of the left-wing activists were taken from their cells in the central city of Cordoba and shot dead shortly after the military took power.
The army said at the time that they were killed while trying to escape.
General Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina’s former military leader, has died aged 87 while serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity
Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla was one of 30 members of the security forces charged with the murders.
Last year, he was also convicted of overseeing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners.
At least 400 babies are thought to have been taken from their parents while they were held in detention centres.
More than 100 children given for adoption to military or police couples have since been reunited with their biological families.
A court in Buenos Aires sentenced Jorge Rafael Videla to 50 years in prison, while another ex-military leader, Reynaldo Bignone, received 15 years for his alleged role in the crime.
In an interview with an Argentine journalist last year, Jorge Rafael Videla said the crackdown he oversaw was the price Argentina had to pay in order to remain a republic.
“War, by nature, is cruel,” he said.
“An internal war, between brothers, is especially cruel.”
Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Latin America for US-based Human Rights Watch, said Jorge Rafael Videla presided over one of the region’s cruellest repressions in modern times.
“He was arrogant to the end and unwilling to acknowledge his responsibility for the massive atrocities committed in Argentina,” he said.
“Many of the secrets of the repression will die with him.”
Argentina’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel told Reuters news agency: “Death has brought an end to his physical existence but not what he did against the people.”
The head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an association that works to uncover the real identities of the stolen children, described Jorge Rafael Videla as a “bad man”.
“I’m reassured that a discredited man has departed this world,” said Estela de Carloto in a statement to local media.
Jorge Rafael Videla was born in 1925, the son of an army colonel.
In 1976, he and two other military leaders staged a coup against President Isabel Peron, the widow of former leader Juan Domingo Peron.
Argentina’s dictatorship:
- 1976: Military junta under General Jorge Rafael Videla seizes power – thousands of political opponents are rounded up and killed in what becomes known as “the dirty war”
- 1982: Jorge Rafael Videla’s successor, General Leopoldo Galtieri, orders invasion of British-held Falkland Islands – more than 700 Argentine soldiers killed in its unsuccessful defense
- 1983: Civilian rule returns to Argentina, and investigations into human rights abuses begin
- 2010: Jorge Rafael Videla is sentenced to life imprisonment for murders during his term in office
- 2012: Jorge Rafael Videla sentenced to 50 years for overseeing systematic theft of the babies of political prisoners
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