A prominent Saudi prince has lost a case in Britain over the handling the sale of a jet to the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. …read more
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Tag Archives: Moammar Gadhafi
International court: Libya must hand over Seif
The International Criminal Court has told Libya it has to hand over the son and one-time heir-apparent of ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi so he can face charges of crimes against humanity.
Judges on Thursday rejected Libya’s request to suspend an earlier order to Tripoli to hand over Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who is expected to stand trial in Libya next month.
Libya had asked for the order to be suspended pending the outcome of the new government’s appeal against the admissibility of the case at the Hague-based court.
Libya argues Seif al-Islam should be tried at home, but judges and the suspect’s lawyers have cast doubt on the country’s ability to give him a fair trial.
The international court says Libya is “currently obliged to surrender Mr. Gadhafi to the court.”
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Gunmen surround Libya Foreign Ministry
A Libyan military official says about 200 armed men are surrounding the Foreign Ministry building in Tripoli, demanding the ministry to reform and hire former fighters who helped overthrow former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Esam al-Naas said 38 trucks, some mounted with machineguns, had surrounded the ministry on Sunday. The men allege that many supporters of the old regime are still occupying senior positions in the ministry and its missions abroad.
He said negotiations with the protesters are underway and that no one has entered the ministry building.
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Libyan officers demand dismissal of military chief
Libyan military officers are demanding the dismissal of the army chief of staff, pledging to go on strike if he is not replaced.
Hundreds of officers met late Sunday in the eastern Libyan city of Brega. They gave Libya‘s government 10 days to comply with their demands, threatening to walk away from their posts.
The officers charge that the army chief, Maj. Gen. Youssef al-Mangoush, is guilty of corruption, poor management and hiring commanders from the deposed regime of Moammar Gadhafi. They also demand the dismissal of those commanders, as well as trial of officers involved in killing rebels who fought against Gadhafi in Libya‘s 2011 civil war.
This was the first time army officers took part in rallies against al-Mangoush. The protests have been going on for a month.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/myUzt-NfLu8/
Top Gadhafi aide to face trial in Egypt
A cousin and onetime top aid of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will face trial in Egypt on charges of attempted murder.
Prosecutor Hamdi Mansour ordered Sunday that Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam be tried for attempted murder, resisting arrest and possession of firearms without a license. The charges stem from a skirmish with police during his arrest last month in Cairo.
Al-Dam had long been the point man on relations between Libya and Egypt under Gadhafi. He challenged a Libyan request to extradite him, though two other Libyan officials arrested along with him have already been sent back.
An Egyptian court ruled in his favor on grounds he fears he won’t be guaranteed his full rights in Libya.
Libya has asked Egypt to hand over around 100 other former regime officials.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Z8ddBV9Nu10/
Probe opens of alleged Libyan funding for Sarkozy
Paris prosecutors have begun investigating whether former President Nicolas Sarkozy‘s winning presidential campaign in 2007 may have received illegal funding from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi‘s regime.
Prosecutors’ office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said the probe which opened Friday centers on claims of corruption, influence trafficking, forgery, abuse of public funds and money laundering.
No one has been named as a suspect. The probe is based on allegations by Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine during questioning by officials in December.
The allegations of Libyan financing emerged in French media last year in the waning days of Sarkozy’s losing re-election bid.
Separately last month, a Bordeaux judge filed preliminary charges against Sarkozy over allegations he illegally took donations from France‘s richest woman in the 2007 election cycle.
Sarkozy has denied any wrongdoing.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/sh-pinnyo0A/
Libya urged to give ex-spy chief access to lawyer
An international rights group is urging Libyan authorities to give an ex-spy chief indicted for alleged crimes against humanity access to a lawyer.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday that its team visited Abdullah al-Senoussi in prison earlier this month and that he did not complain of any physical mistreatment in prison, but said he didn’t have a lawyer.
Al-Senoussi was indicted by The International Criminal Court in June 2011 for crimes against humanity during brutal attempts to put down the Libyan rebellion that ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi after four decades in power.
Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch says al-Senoussi needs to be granted the rights the Gadhafi regime long denied to the Libyan people.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/UnhTI9umtxc/
Libyan gunmen hit police station, free 2 detainees
A Libyan security official says gunmen have stormed a police station in Tripoli, taking two detainees with them.
He says the attackers first set off a bomb at the police station. Then they tied up seven policemen and grabbed three rifles before fleeing with the two.
The Thursday attack was just the latest of many similar incidents involving armed Libyans.
The official said no one was hurt in the police station attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
No details about the two detainees were immediately known.
Two years after the country’s civil war, Libya is struggling to build a unified army and reign in militias, which include rebels who fought to oust the country’s longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
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Egypt court stops extradition of top Gadhafi aide
Egypt‘s state news agency says an Egyptian court has ruled against the extradition to Libya of a former close aide of ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, a relative of Gadhafi who for decades coordinated relations between the Libyan and Egyptian regimes, had contested a Libyan request to extradite him following his arrest last month in his Cairo home.
Two other Libyan officials arrested alongside him have already been sent back to Libya.
Libyan authorities sought the men for alleged corruption and roles in Libya‘s eight-month civil war that ended with Gadhafi’s death in 2011. Libya has already asked Egypt to handover around 100 other former regime officials.
The news agency said Egypt‘s Administrative Court suspended Wednesday the extradition procedures, saying al-Dam should be tried in Egypt.
Libya says it should be allowed to try spy chief
Libya has formally applied to the International Criminal Court to be allowed to put Moammar Gadhafi‘s former spy chief on trial in Tripoli instead of sending him to The Hague to face justice.
In a lengthy submission published Wednesday, lawyers representing Libya argue that Abdullah al-Senoussi’s home country is willing and able to prosecute him and therefore has precedence over the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
The International Criminal Court has indicted Al-Senoussi for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the Gadhafi regime’s brutal attempts to put down the 2011 rebellion that ousted the dictator after four decades in power.
Al-Senoussi is jailed in Libya. His lawyers argue he will not get a fair trial at home and should be sent to The Hague.
Egypt extradites 2 Gadhafi-era officials to Libya
A Cairo airport official says authorities have extradited two Libyan officials from the regime of deposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi back to their home country.
It is the first time in years that Egypt has conducted such a high-profile extradition.
The official says the two, 71-year-old former ambassador to Cairo Ali Maria and another ex-official, 44-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim Gadhafi, were handcuffed after resisting the transfer.
The two were arrested a week ago along with a top Gadhafi aide and cousin Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Since Gadhafi was ousted and killed in 2011, Libya has demanded that Egypt handover dozens of officials from the former regime.
Former rebels besiege Libyan premier's office
About 200 former rebel fighters in Libya have besieged the prime minister’s office, demanding that he resign.
The militia members, who did not threaten violence, want Prime Minister Ali Zidan to step down in accordance with a political isolation law banning members of the former regime from political life.
He served as an ambassador under Moammar Gadhafi, who was ousted in an eight-month civil war.
The law is controversial because it bans anyone who worked with Gadhafi from 1969 until he was killed in 2011.
The prime minister’s convoy was seen moving around the capital, Tripoli, last week with more security guards than usual — after an influx of militias from around the country.
Egypt: Libya demands handover of ex-regime members
An Egyptian security official says a Libyan intelligence delegation has arrived in Egypt to negotiate the handover of wanted members of the former dictator Moammar Gadhafi‘s regime.
The official says the delegation that arrived on Thursday brought a new list of 88 names.
The visit comes two days after Egyptian authorities arrested Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, a former top aide to Gadhafi, at his home in Cairo. He was arrested along with two others wanted for their roles during the eight-month civil war in Libya that ended with ouster and killing of Gadhafi.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information to the media.
Last year, Libya asked Egypt to hand over nearly 40 former members of the Gadhafi regime.
Group defends Libyan town, once Gadhafi stronghold
An international rights group is urging the Libyan government to halt what it describes as “systematic destruction” of a town whose residents had backed Moammar Gadhafi during the country’s civil war.
The town of Tawergha was used as a staging ground by Gadhafi’s forces to launch attacks on the nearby besieged town of Misrata.
After rebels broke the siege of Misrata and overran Tawergha, the town’s 40,000 residents fled or were driven out by vengeful rebels.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that recent satellite images show “arson and targeted demolitions” of Tawergha.
The New York-based group says this is intended to prevent residents from coming back.
More than 18 months since the end of the conflict that ousted Gadhafi’s regime, Libya is awash with weapons, roaming militias, violence and instability.
Cousin of Libya's Gadhafi arrested in Egypt
Egyptian security forces arrested a close aide and a cousin of Libya‘s former dictator Moammar Gadhafi on Tuesday following an hours-long siege of his home in central Cairo, a security official and witnesses said.
Gadhafi’s former intelligence official Ahmed Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, who is among dozens wanted for their role in Libya‘s 2011 civil war, surrendered to Egyptian security forces, they said.
Police had surrounded his home in the Cairo neighborhood of Zamalek before dawn. Shots were fired during the siege, but witnesses gave conflicting reports as to whether Qaddaf al-Dam opened fire in the air to drive police away or police had fired the shots as they tried to storm the building. There were no injuries reported.
The official said that Qaddaf al-Dam will be handed over to Interpol to be transferred to Libya. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
Last year, Libya‘s general prosecutor had requested that Egypt hand over 40 Libyans affiliated with Gadhafi’s regime suspected of committing offenses during the eight-month war.
In addition to Qaddaf al-Dam, the list included former Foreign Minister Ali Al-Treki and military intelligence chief Bouzeid Al-Jabou.
During the siege, Qaddaf al-Dam said in a phone call to a private TV channel that he had been invited to Cairo by the military council that took over after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. He described security forces as “a gang.”
“We came here with an invitation from the Foreign Ministry and the military council … We are not terrorists to be ambushed like this,” he said. “We will defend our house until the end.”
Mubarak, who like Gadhafi was ousted by a 2011 Arab Spring uprising, had close ties to the Libyan dictator. Human rights groups said Cairo allowed Libyan intelligence to kidnap the anti-Gadhafi opposition, notably dissident Mansour Kikhia who disappeared in 1993. Kikhia was said to have later been killed. His remains were located in a house in Tripoli in September.
Even after Mubarak’s overthrow, Cairo appeared reluctant to hand over wanted Gadhafi officials, possibly because they had ties with Egypt‘s intelligence and security apparatus or investments in the country.
The move against Qaddaf al-Dam comes shortly after a visit to Cairo of …read more
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Christians say they were tortured in Libya
Several Egyptian Christians recently released from detention by Libyan militias say they were tortured while in custody, the latest instance of abuse by the state-financed forces who handle security in many Libyan cities.
The Christians gave their accounts on Friday after returning to Egypt earlier this month. They were among scores detained by militias in the eastern city of Benghazi on charges of proselytization. One died in custody and his family says he was tortured.
Two days before, the head of the Libyan parliament’s human rights committee resigned on television, claiming he received death threats. In a separate audio clip circulated on social media, Hassan al-Amin accused militias of abuses “much worse” than those committed under Moammar Gadhafi, toppled and killed in Libya‘s 2011 civil war.
Libya's militarized youth feed into economic woes
More than 18 months since the end of Libya‘s civil war, the most attractive job for many of the young is still to join a militia. In fact, just under a tenth of Libya‘s labor force may be working as gunmen.
Libya‘s government coffers are rapidly filling with cash as oil exports return to near pre-war levels, powering a 100 percent increase in GDP in 2012, according to a report this month by the International Monetary Fund.
But the economy of this North African oil giant remains in disarray. Unemployment, officially at 15 percent, is estimated by some as high as 50 percent. The private sector, decimated under ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, still barely functions. Reconstruction investment is largely on hold, and the weak central government is funneling much of its oil wealth into public handouts to quiet discontent, as Gadhafi often did. Other money is lost down the drain of corruption.
And still other funds end up fueling the growth of militias.
The state pays many militias, relying on them to serve as security forces since the police and military remain a shambles. The regular salary has drawn a flood of young Libyans.
Militias first rose up as “brigades” during the eight-month civil war against Gadhafi, and at the time their fighters likely numbered in the thousands. Now an estimated 200,000 people are registered by the government on the rolls of militias, according to the commanders in two of the biggest militias, Hafiz al-Agouri, of Libya Shield, and Ismail al-Salabi, of the Rafallah Sahati brigade.
That would mean more than 8 percent of the country’s entire work force are in militias. The most recent World Bank estimate, from 2010, put Libya‘s labor force at 2.3 million people.
A Libyan businessman and an owner of a private construction company that has government contracts for rebuilding infrastructure in the eastern region bemoaned the lure of militia work among his own staff.
“My very skillful welder left because he got a job in a brigade that would not only give him triple the salary but he could work four days and take a week off,” Nasser Ahdash told The Associated Press. He said he is unable to carry out the reconstruction work because the price of his contracts doesn’t cover the rising costs of equipment, material and labor.
Libyan leader vows to stand against militia
Libya‘s Prime Minister Ali Zidan is calling on militias to evacuate their buildings and headquarters, vowing that his government will be decisive in dealing with the armed groups that he says are “hijacking” the country.
After the fall of Libya‘s dictator Moammar Gadhafi, armed groups including rebels who battled Gadhafi’s forces during eight-month civil war, posed a challenge to transitional authorities struggling to transform them into a unified national military and police force.
During a police graduation ceremony Thursday in Tripoli, Zidan said the state “will not be lenient and we will not permit hijacking of Tripoli or Benghazi or any other city.”
Libya‘s newly appointed Interior Minister Ashour Shwayel says the number of policemen, including those who are inactive, is 120,000 and thousands are to join in coming weeks.
A look at Syria's civil war
CASUALTIES: The number of people killed in Syria‘s civil war is nearing 70,000, according to U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, claims 56,416 people have been killed. The Observatory’s figure includes 13,787 Syrian government troops. There are no precise death tolls available from the Syrian regime.
— REFUGEES: U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos says the growing number of Syrians affected by the civil war in Syria is now 4 million and rising. They include an estimated 2 million displaced within Syria and nearly 925,000 who have fled the country. Most of the refugees have gone to neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and the influx is outstripping those countries’ and the international community’s ability to help.
— INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES: President Bashar Assad can count on his traditional Shiite allies, Iran and Lebanon‘s Hezbollah. The regime also enjoys crucial political cover from Russia and China, which have used their vetoes in the U.N. Security Council to prevent U.N. sanctions on Syria.
The rebels have built an array of regional support that includes the wealthy Gulf states — led by regional Sunni power Saudi Arabia — and neighboring Turkey, which offers key supply routes. The West also backs the rebel forces, but has so far opposed supplying them with significant weapons or mobilizing international military support similar to the NATO-led air campaign that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi‘s regime in Libya.
— THE FIGHT ON THE GROUND: The regime has lost significant swaths of territory to the rebels, particularly in the northeast near the border with Turkey. But while the rebels control most of the countryside, the Syrian military remains in control of most of the cities. Currently, the two key fronts in the war are in Aleppo, the country’s largest city and a former commercial hub, and in Damascus, the capital.
Aleppo has been carved into rebel- and government-controlled zones, and neither side has been able to overwhelm the other in a contest that has descended into a brutal slog for each city block.
In Damascus, the regime is relying on its best equipped and most loyal troops, and has managed to keep a tight grip on the center of the city. Some of the capital’s suburbs, however, have been rebel strongholds since the early days of the uprising, and opposition fighters are using the towns and villages on Damascus’ doorstep to slowly try to push their way into the heart of …read more
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Symbolism weighs heavy at Iran nuclear talks venue
The venue for talks on Iran‘s nuclear program between world powers and Tehran carries a symbolism that Western negotiators will hope serves as a positive omen.
In the 1990s, Kazakhstan, a sprawling former Soviet republic, gave up a huge nuclear stockpile and now wants to capitalize on its nonproliferation track record by offering to host a bank of reactor fuel that would remove the need for countries, namely Iran, to enrich uranium for themselves.
That may be one proposal under consideration at this week’s talks in Kazakhstan’s commercial capital, Almaty, between Iran and six world powers — five permanent U.N. Security council members and Germany — on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.
Iran insists it is not working on a nuclear weapons program, but rather is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and for scientific and medical purposes, as allowed by international law.
But many nations are suspicious because Iran went underground after failing to get international help for its uranium enrichment program in the 1980s, working secretly until its activities were revealed a decade ago. More recent proposals for international shipments of reactor fuel in exchange for Iranian enrichment concessions have foundered, with each side blaming the other.
Kazakhstan will not be involved in the talks that start Tuesday, and are expected to last for two days.
Kazakhstan’s willingness to dispense with its once formidable arsenal in large part was born out of its grim legacy as a nuclear weapon testing site in Soviet times. Some critics say, however, that Kazakhstan’s vocal trumpeting of its nonproliferation record is designed to act as a smoke screen for its lack of democratic freedoms.
Amid the Soviet Union‘s collapse, the Central Asian nation unexpectedly found itself holding more than a thousand strategic nuclear warheads and 370 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, becoming the world’s first predominantly Muslim-populated nuclear power.
Within a day of Kazakhstan declaring independence in 1991, Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat flew into Almaty in a visit that alarmed Western diplomats. Weeks later, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev visited Pakistan, but officials ruled out cooperation on nuclear technology.
A former foreign minister of Kazakhstan last year claimed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was yet another hopeful buyer snubbed by Kazakhstan.