The government yesterday sought to clarify confusion over the case of Martin Galea, establishing once and for all that the retired captain had in fact been abducted in Libya.

Based on the debriefing of Mr Galea and on several interviews carried out by the Security Service with people involved in his release both in Malta and Libya, it was clear beyond doubt that the former military man was kidnapped and held in detention, civil service head Mario Cutajar told the press yesterday evening.

The most compelling proof of his detention comes from the sweat sores on his body, compatible with a time spent in a confined humid environment without access to proper sanitary facilities, a source told Times of Malta.

The redness on his face, which was evident when he emerged from the Medavia plane that brought him back home on Monday evening, is also indicative of this as well as of the fact that he was dehydrated. The clarification comes after Mr Cutajar himself appeared to distance himself from the idea that Mr Galea had been seized on Wednesday, when he underlined that the government had never used the word “abducted” when talking about the case.

He was being asked to react to reports in Malta Today and l-orizzont, which reported Libyan militiamen saying that Mr Galea was not kidnapped but had actually been held by a “friendly militia” which took him into custody for his own safety after fighting had broken out.

Mr Galea himself contradicted these claims yesterday in his first interview since being released on Monday afternoon. He said that not only was he held against his will in a cell but was threatened with death, beaten and even shot at during his 11-day captivity.

He said his guards were suspicious of his military past and the fact that he had two passports. He said they accused him of having killed Libyans and had also overheard them plotting his execution. Then at one point, he thought he was about to be shot and prayed for a quick death, but he was released.

Mystery surrounds identity of Galea captors and their motive

When questioned about the fact that Mr Galea’s version jarred with the government’s claim that he had no signs of violence, the Prime Minister’s spokesman Kurt Farrugia said that statement was based on his medical examination at Mater Dei Hospital on his return.

“We did not say, and cannot say really, because we were not there, that Mr Galea was not beaten. We said that according to the medical record he had no signs of violence.

“We are in no way contradicting his version of events and are definitely not suggesting that he did not suffer during this time. There is no question about that,” he said.

In his interview, Mr Galea said he had been beaten a few times. At one point, he said that his captors made him hit his hand repeatedly with a wooden stick studded with rusting nails.

“Only when I was bleeding heavily did he say I could stop,” he told The Malta Independent.

The newspaper said he indicated the marks on his hand which, however, were not visible on video.

The identity of the captors or their motives remain a mystery. Mr Galea said he could not identify the area he was seized from because he was unfamiliar with the road he was being driven through at the time of his capture.

The captors did not identify themselves, although at one point he said two of them, one called Fahmi, lived in Malta in 2001.

Only when I was bleeding heavily did he say I could stop

Another, called Ashur, was a former captain in Gaddafi’s army.

When questioned on this point, Mr Cutajar said the Security Service (without naming them himself) were still not in a position to be completely certain of the identity of the captors even though they had their leads.

But based on the area where Mr Galea said he left from and where they were heading in the desert, it is likely that they wound up in Warshefana, an area outside Tripoli known as a former Gaddafi stronghold and a hotbed for criminal gangs.

However, sources said, the Security Services are yet to interview a few key individuals before they will be able to establish this point with certainty to the exclusion of other possibilities.

Meanwhile, the situation in Libya has not improved. Yesterday, there were conflicting reports that the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Sharia) had managed to take control of the country’s eastern city of Benghazi.

Malta continued to receive both wounded and evacuees. Eight wounded men have been brought to Malta so far and yesterday a plane landed with 64 people aboard, five of them Maltese.