BBC Team Kidnapped, Beaten By Qaddafi Thugs
BBC News reports:
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's security forces detained and beat up a BBC news team who were trying to reach the strife-torn western city of Zawiya.
The three were beaten with fists, knees and rifles, hooded and subjected to mock executions by members of Libya's army and secret police.
The men were detained on Monday and held for 21 hours, but have now flown out of Libya.
Government forces are in a fierce fight to wrest Zawiya from rebel control.
Artillery and tanks have pounded the city - which lies 50km (30 miles) from the capital Tripoli - over the past four days.
'Gun against neck'
The BBC team showed their identification when they were detained at an army roadblock on Monday.
They had been seeking, like many journalists, to get around government restrictions by reaching besieged Zawiya.
The three of them were taken to a huge military barracks in Tripoli, where they were blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten.
One of the three, Chris Cobb-Smith, said: "We were lined up against the wall. I was the last in line - facing the wall.
"I looked and I saw a plain-clothes guy with a small sub-machine gun. He put it to everyone's neck. I saw him and he screamed at me.
"Then he walked up to me, put the gun to my neck and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets whisked past my ear. The soldiers just laughed."
A second member of the team - Feras Killani, a correspondent of Palestinian descent - is said to have been singled out for repeated beatings.
Click here to read more.
