Libya urges neighbours to hand over Gaddafi supporters, threatening to sever bilateral ties
Libya urged its neighbors to hand over supporters of toppled leader Muammar Gaddafi who have fled the country, saying bilateral ties could be threatened if they did not cooperate.
- Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), named no specific countries but said Libya had spoken to Arab and African states about the pending matter.
- “The NTC, the transitional government and the Libyan people reached out to our neighbors to respect each other and not intervene in our internal issues but we are sorry that they didn’t listen to us,” he told a news conference.
- Libya this month urged Niger to extradite Gaddafi’s son Saadi, saying his call for Libyans to prepare for what he called a “coming uprising” threatened bilateral ties.
- Niger responded that it could not hand over Saadi, who fled south to the West African state in September as Libyan forces gain the upper hand over his father’s forces, because he would face execution in Libya.
- But officials in Libya and Niger said Niger authorities had placed tighter restrictions on Saadi’s movements.
- Gaddafi’s wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Mohammed and Hannibal fled to Algeria in August.
- Algiers said it had granted them refuge on humanitarian grounds but ordered them to stay out of politics.
- Reliable sources say that Algerian authorities have so far received no official request from their Libyan counterparts and no official arrest warrant from Interpol to extradite the 4 members of the Gaddafi family who have been granted safe haven in Algeria on strict humanitarian grounds beyond any political considerations.
- The same sources also indicated that a senior Algerian official was expected shortly in Tripoli to discuss this contentious issue with the Libyan leadership with the aim of thrashing out an early solution to this outstanding problem.
- Gaddafi’s former Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi remains in a Tunisian jail pending a decision on his extradition to Libya. Other officials from the Gaddafi regime are believed to have fled Libya during last year’s conflict.
- “We have sent memorandums to these countries, some of them Arab, some of them African, to hand over these people but these states have not taken legal steps to hand over them or stop them in their work against Libya,” Abdel Jalil said.
- “The Libyan people won’t forgive any state which won’t hand them over. Our relationship with these states will depend on their cooperation in this matter.”
- Asked whether Libya would sever relations with these countries if they failed to cooperate, Abdel Jalil said: “The NTC and the government have asked the Libyan foreign ministry to send envoys to these countries to find a solution regarding this matter.