BENGHAZI
The whereabouts of a former advisor of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi are still unknown, hours after the authorities at Tobruk airport in eastern Libya said they arrested him while the Libyan government said it did not have any information about the matter.
An official from the visa section at the Tobruk airport told Anadolu Agency that Mohamed Ahmed Shehata was arrested as he tried to travel to Turkey with a forged visa.
"Airport authorities handed him over to the Libyan government through the Interior Ministry," the source said.
He quoted Shehata as saying during an interrogation that he had entered Libya illegally by paying $400 to a person he did not identify.
The source, however, did not mention the exact date of Shehata's arrest. Even with this, he said Shehata was arrested in the past ten days.
Meanwhile, the media office of the Libyan Interior Ministry denied reports about Shehata having been handed to the ministry.
Spokesman for the Libyan government Ahmed Lamin, meanwhile, said the government did not know anything about Shehata’s arrest.
"The government has not got any official information about the man," Lamin told AA. "We only knew about his arrest from the media," he added.
Egyptian authorities have not made any official comment about Shehata's arrest yet.
Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, was removed from office by the military last July following massive demonstrations against his presidency.
He currently faces multiple criminal charges, including incitement to murder, jailbreak and espionage.
By Moataz al-Majbari
englishnews@aa.com.tr
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