Escaped French agent flown to Djibouti, then France

The French intelligence agent who escaped his Somali captors has been transferred to neighbouring Djibouti, from where he is to travel back home, a French government official said Thursday.

The Red Sea state is home to France's biggest overseas military base.

He is expected in Paris later in the day, said the official who asked not to be named.

The agent said in a radio interview on Wednesday that he had escaped the previous night as his captors slept and found his way in darkness to Mogadishu's presidential palace.

Gunmen kidnapped two French agents, said to be on an advisory mission to Somalia's traditional government, at a Mogadishu hotel on July 14.

The two men were separated, held by two hardline groups involved in a military offensive against the government.

The second French agent is still being held by the Shebab, an Al Qaeda-inspired group, which has previously said the paid would face a Sharia court for "spying and entering Somalia to assist the enemy of Allah."

Meanwhile the French agent had reached Paris for a thorough debriefing.

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