Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the NTC, has denied reports circulating in Libya that a Jordanian company had been awarded a contract . . .[restrict]worth millions of dinars to organize celebrations across the country to mark the first anniversary of the 17 February uprising.
He also repeated his earlier denial of reports that Libya had been in secret talks with Israel and that the Israelis would soon open a diplomatic mission in Tripoli and also that the NTC had been in contact with Aisha Qaddafi and her brother Mohammed in Algeria.
These were just rumours, Jalil told at a press conference in Tripoli. They were being spread by those who wanted to create divisions and make problems in Libya The media, he said, were reporting stories that were not true.
The rumour about the Jordanian contract started during the visit to Libya earlier this week of Jordan’s Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh at the head of major delegation that included 10 Jordanian ministers and leading officials. The story has created considerable anger. “The priority is rebuilding the country, not celebrating. said Tripoli businessman Hani Belgassem on Thursday, “and we don’t need to pay a company to organize celebrations. We can do that ourselves.”
The report about the meeting with Aisha and Mohammed Qaddafi, supposedly connected to the upcoming trial of Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi on Libya on murder charges surfaced in the Algerian press last week. They were not regarded as credible at the time and were seen as part of a disinformation campaign based in Algeria. Last month’s reports that the NTC had signed a secret agreement with the US to station 12,000 American troops in Libya which similarly first surfaced in the Algerian press, were also seen as part of that campaign.
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