Thursday 11th October 2012 Defence lawyers say a trial in Libya will not be motivated by justice and Saif al-Islam “will be hanged”. The lawyer for the son and one-time heir-apparent of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has given warning that the International Criminal Court’s reputation will be damaged if it allows Libya to put him on trial. Melinda Taylor, one of [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 Two men who claim they were illegally sent to Libya with the help of UK intelligence have accused ex-MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett of misleading MPs. Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Sami Al Saadi say they were tortured after being handed over to Colonel Gaddafi’s former regime and are suing the UK. Newly filed High Court papers [ Read More ]
October 2012 An Islamist militia suspected of the killing of America’s Libya ambassador is being blockaded in a remote, forested region in the east of the country, but army commanders say they lack the firepower to capture the militiamen. The Islamist Ansar al-Sharia fled to the hilly Jebel Akhdar – Green Mountains – region after protesters ejected its members from [ Read More ]
October 2012 It was being reported by a number of congressmen this evening, Wednesday, that Ali Zidan, the independent member for Jufra, is planning to resign from Congress in order to run for prime minister. “It’s true”, said one prominent congressman who did not want to be named. “He may have resigned already.” Members of Congress cannot be elected to the premiership. [ Read More ]
October 2012 A group of 15 Libyan journalists who fought in the Revolution have just returned from a ten-day media training course in Italy. The training, which was organised by the Italian news agency AGI and financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was designed to help strengthen the Libyan media sector. The Italian Ambassador in Libya, Giuseppe Buccino [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 Security in Libya was reduced before last month’s attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, even as violence worsened, a US panel has heard. A former US Army official in Libya, Lt Col Andrew Wood, said that security in the country had been “weak”. The rancorous congressional committee hearing centred on whether the state department had [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 Republicans claim staff security in Libya was neglected by Democrat administration At a hearing on Capitol Hill Republicans yesterday sought to eviscerate the Obama administration over its handling of the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, saying officials failed to heed security warnings and dissembled in [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 The State Department has acknowledged that it rejected appeals for more security at its diplomatic posts in Libya in the months before a fatal terrorist attack in Benghazi as Republicans suggested that lapses contributed to the deaths of the US ambassador and three other Americans. Republicans also tried to use a congressional hearing to blow holes [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 The State Department’s former point man on security in Libya told a congressional hearing Wednesday that his superiors worked against him as he tried to get more help for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi in the months before it was overrun in a deadly terror attack. Eric Nordstrom, the one-time regional security officer, told the [ Read More ]
Thursday 11th October 2012 A former U.S. security official in Libya testified Wednesday that the State Department withdrew security officers from the country as violence from armed militia groups grew worse over the summer.” The security in Benghazi was a struggle and remained a struggle throughout my time there,” Army Lt. Col. Andrew Wood said in testimony at a hearing [ Read More ]
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