NewSouth Korean trade official freed by kidnappers in Libya

A South Korean trade official who was kidnapped in Libya has been freed three days after he was taken hostage by armed men, the Libyan foreign ministry and South Korean media said on Wednesday.

Han Seok-woo, the head of the Libya unit of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra), was freed on Wednesday and was in good health, they said.

Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Abdelrazak al-Gridi, told the Lana news agency that Libyan security forces freed him. But South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing an official, reported that he was freed by Libyan gunmen who were then arrested.

The discrepancy between the two accounts was not immediately explained.

Gridi did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Han’s release. Yonhap said Han was to be handed over to the South Korean embassy.

Han was kidnapped in the capital of Tripoli on his way home after work on Sunday, a South Korean foreign ministry official who declined to be named told AFP at the time of the abduction.