AP journalists Farai Mugano and Gillian Gotora were briefly detained at the Libyan Embassy in Harare where they had gone to cover the deportation story of Ambassador Taher Elmagrahi.
(MISA/IFEX) – Associated Press journalists Farai Mugano and Gillian Gotora were briefly detained at the Libyan Embassy in Harare on 1 September 2011 where they had gone to cover the deportation story of Ambassador Taher Elmagrahi.
Police arrested and detained the journalists as they tried to interview Elmagrahi outside the embassy. “I was filming from outside the building at the Libyan Embassy when Ambassador Elmagrahi arrived at the embassy and stormed out of his car and tried to stop my filming,” said Mugano.
The ambassador reportedly told the police guarding the premises to shoot Mugano before he was taken inside the building where he was detained for about three hours before being released after a statement had been recorded from him.
Elmagrahi was ordered to leave the country after he abandoned Colonel Muammar Gadaffi’s fallen regime in Tripoli and switched allegiance to the rebels.
