By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab
Tripoli, March 31: One of Abdullah Naker’s assistants has denied reports in Tripoli that his boss, head of the so-called . . .[restrict]Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Council and founder of Al-Qimma party, had left Tripoli and gone into hiding in Zintan or that there had been attempts to arrest him. He said that Naker was in Zintan for private reasons and would be returning to Tripoli today.
A source at the interior ministry said on Thursday that officials had been instructed by the Attorney General’s office the previous evening to arrest Naker in order to question him about allegations made against him. However, when they went to his home he had already disappeared. Naker, the source said, had been accused of attacking a police station in Bab Ben Gashir and of detaining individuals and forcibly removing their belongings.
The source said that an earlier attempt to arrest Naker, was abandoned following protests from a number of government officials.
He said that following the arrest of Qaddafi spymaster Abdullah Senussi’s in Mauritania on March 17, ministry forces monitored Naker’s movements for a day and then broke into his office that evening in an attempt to arrest him — but again he was not there.
Naker has claimed in a number of TV and newspaper interviews that he was in possession of Abdullah Senussi — statements which many observers consider to have been deliberately misleading. He continued to make such claims even after Abdullah’s arrest.
At the government press conference on March 21, government spokesman Nasser Al-Mana expressed outrage at the behaviour of those who supposedly supported the revolution but who made deliberately “misguided statements”. Such rumour mongering, he said was tantamount to sedition. Those responsible were acting like criminals and should be prosecuted he said — “and will be punished”, he added.
His statement was seen as directed specifically at Naker. [/restrict]
