The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has denied reports by some media that Ukrainian citizens detained in Libya have been tortured.
"The information published by a number of media about the torture of citizens of Ukraine in Libya is absolutely untrue," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Dykusarov told Interfax-Ukraine on 8 Sept.
He said Ukrainian diplomats in Tripoli on Sep. 7, visited the detained Ukrainians.
"They made sure there were no threats to their [the Ukrainians’] lives and health, [and] that they are supplied with food and drinking water," Dykusarov said.
Dykusarov also said a doctor visited the detainees together with the diplomats and confirmed the Ukrainians’ health conditions are satisfactory.
"An agreement was made to transfer in the coming days three Ukrainian citizens, who are being kept near the Mitiga airport, to another group of our compatriots that are living in a hostel in better conditions," Dykusarov said.
The Segodnya newspaper reported on Thursday, with a reference to an unnamed source, that Libyan rebel fighters detained Ukrainians in Tripoli suspected of repairing the air defense system. The international coalition claimed to have destroyed the system at the very beginning of the military conflict in Libya.
"An far as I know, some of the detainees are being subjected to cruel torture. They [the rebel fighters] want to find out the secrets of [Muammar] Gaddafi’s army," the source told the newspaper.
It was reported that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed the detention in Libya of 23 Ukrainian civilian specialists, who have arrived there to work at Libyan oil facilities. One of them has already been released after the embassy intervened, and the rest are still being checked. The Libyans have brought no formal charges against the Ukrainian citizens.
