Libyan PM detained, freed (Roundup)

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who was seized by militiamen in Tripoli in the early hours of Thursday, was later released in the morning, AKI reported citing state television.

Zeidan's abduction came after a recent US commando raid on Libyan soil which led to the arrest of senior Al Qaeda suspect Anas Al Liby.

An armed group, believed to be former rebels, stormed the Corinthia Hotel in downtown Tripoli which houses the residence of Zeidan around 3 a.m. and took Zeidan to an unknown location, according to a Xinhua report.

Cabinet sources had officially stated that the premier was kidnapped by "unidentified armed people".

"Zeidan was kidnapped by unidentified armed persons who took him away to an unknown destination," the prime minister's spokesman Mohamed Kaabr said.

A former rebel group, the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room, loosely allied to the government, detained Zeidan, claiming it was acting on orders from the prosecutor general, according to AKI.

Libya's justice ministry denied the allegations and Justice Minister Salah al-Merghany vowed Zeidan's abductors would be brought to justice.

"All those responsible for this crime will be punished and who made this assault on state security will be punished, " he told Libya's independent news agency Solidarity, adding that a cabinet meeting would soon be held on the issue.

He said this after the Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room announced Zeidan's release, stating that Zeidan was being probed for "crimes against the state and state security".

It denied it had abducted Zeidan in retaliation for Al Liby's kidnapping Oct 5.

Zeidan issued a defiant message after his release, refusing to resign his post.

"If the purpose of my abduction was to obtain my resignation, I won't," he wrote in a message on the social networking site Twitter.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had called for Zeidan's release and offered Libya the military alliance's help over the kidnapping.

Libya's former colonial power Italy held meetings with the defence ministry and the army and an emergency cabinet meeting over Zeidan's abduction.

Earlier this week, Zeidan urged Western powers to help rein in the country's powerful militias.