THE IRISH MAN who was taken hostage at a BP oil complex in Algeria has arrived back home.
The Belfast man, who has dual Irish and British nationality, was one of a number of people taken hostage by Islamists connected to Al Qaeda.
His mother Marie told the Sunday Mirror that the experience was “traumatic” for her son, and that he doesn’t want to say anything publicly about the incident.
Yesterday, British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that three Britons had died and another three were presumed dead in the oil plant. Hostages from Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines were among those as yet unaccounted for.
The death toll has reached 80, and the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any country backing France’s military intervention in neighbouring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.
Authorities said the bloody takeover was carried out Wednesday by 32 men from six countries, under the command from afar of the one-eyed Algerian bandit Moktar Belmoktar, founder of the Masked Brigade, based in Mali. The attacking force called itself “Those Who Sign in Blood.”
Armed with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades, the militants singled out foreign workers at the plant, killing some of them on the spot and attaching explosive belts to others.