Tripoli, March 30: NTC leader Mustafa Abdel . . .[restrict]Jalil called yesterday on Arab countries to extradite wanted Qaddafi loyalists to the country so they could be investigated and brought to court. “They will face fair trials for the crimes they have committed,” Jalil told the opening session of the Arab Summit in Baghdad on Thursday.
A significant number of former top-ranking Qaddafi officials have found refuge mainly in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and some Gulf states. Despite strong pressure from Libyan none of them is prepared so far to hand anyone over, citing concerns about the state of Libyan justice.
Qaddafi’s widow, Safia, along with his children Mohamed, Aisha and Hannibal and their families have been given asylum in Algeria. It has refused two demands for their extradition.
Likewise, there have protracted negotiations with Egypt over the extradition of dozens of Qaddafi officials but so far produced there has been no result. Figures include former coordinator of Egyptian-Libyan relations Ahmed Qaddaf Al-Dam, former Foreign Minister Ali Treki, military intelligence chief Bouzeid Al-Jabou, head of internal security Tuhami Mohamed Khalid, radio and TV boss Abdullah Mansur and Ali Al-Kelani, who is accused of running torture chambers.
At the end of February, Libya’s Attorney General, Abdulaziz Al-Hasadi, was in Cairo for talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, in an effort to resolve the issue.
Tunisia refuses to hand over Qaddafi’s prime minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi despite the courts there approving his extradition. He remain in jail while the government considers what to do. Libya accuses Mahmoudi of incited the rape of women in Zuara during the fighting there last year.
Mauritania is holding Qaddafi’s spymaster Abdullah Senussi. The Libyan government says it has agreed to hand him over, however it has since been reported in Nouakchott that it is going to hand him to France.
It is not expected that the summit will achieve much. None of the leaders from the GCC states are attending nor are the rulers of Jordan and Morocco in what has been described as a deliberate decision by Sunni states to ignore the event. The Iraqi government is seen in a number of Arab capitals as being a puppet of Iran.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is not attending either and there is no head-of-state presence from Egypt or Yemen. [/restrict]
