Montreal man kidnapped in Libya happy to be home after seven-week ordeal
MONTREAL — When he was driven deep into the Libyan desert and told to kneel in the sand, Frank Poccia thought his seven weeks as a hostage were drawing to a tragic close.
Lying on the ground, surrounded by armed gunmen, he thought, “OK, this is where they’re going to kill us, something didn’t go right,” Poccia recalled.
Instead, the 52-year-old Canadian and two fellow Italian hostages were loaded into another vehicle and taken to the airport where they were released, 47 days after being taken captive by armed gunmen as they headed to work in Ghat, Libya.
Now, a month after the Italian government announced the men’s release, Poccia told The Canadian Press he considers himself lucky to have escaped the ordeal and happy to be back home with his family in Montreal.