A Romanian citizen held in custody by the Libyan authorities was released and is safe, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.
In a statement, the Ministry stated that it had taken steps to rectify the situation, and his release has been carried out “consistently and strongly on several levels.”
It added that his release came after repeated dialogue of the Romanian Embassy with the Libyan authorities at various levels, and through actions taken, at the request of the Romanian authorities.
The situation had been at the attention of the Romanian Ministry since mid-April.
Libya has sought to emerge from a decade of chaos since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Earlier this month, Libya’s eastern-based Parliament voted to suspend its designated Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha. It appointed his Finance Minister, Osama Hamada to his role, the Parliamentary Spokesman, Abdullah Blaiheg said Tuesday.
In February 2022, the Libyan Parliament elected the former Interior Minister to replace Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba. This was part of a United Nations-backed peace process to end more than a decade of violence in the North African country.
Dbaiba failed in his key task of organizing elections in December, at which point the Parliament ruled that his mandate had run out. The Tripoli-based Prime Minister refused to hand over power before elections, preparing a showdown with Bashagha.
Notably, the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to Libya expressed its deep concerns over the country’s deteriorating human rights situation.
In its final report, the Mission stated that “there are grounds to believe a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by state security forces and armed militia groups.”