By Umar Khan.
Tripoli, 14 January 2013:
The special SWAT unit ‘Quwat Al-Rada” that arrested . . .[restrict]the alleged drug dealer Najmi Al-Abani who subsequently died claims it had been looking for him for over four weeks and an arrest warrant had been obtained from the anti-narcotics department over a month ago. It also claims that Abani died in prison of severe cold.
Others say that he was a small-time dealer, that he was murdered and his body left on the beach. Deputy Interior Minister Omar El-Khadrawi has said that he was killed “unlawfully”. An enquiry has been started by the authorties.
The special unit, commanded by Mahmud Humza, comes under the Ministry of Interior and has created a name for seizing large amount drugs and alcohol in the past 6 weeks.
Abani, who lived in Tripoli’s Fashloum district, had a history as a drug dealer, the unit says, claiming that he served a lengthy prison sentence in Tunisia in the 1990s and he was later arrested in Libya and charged with drugs-related offences. It is reported that he was last arrested in May 2009 along with two others while trying to bring a kilo of cocaine into Libya.
After the news of his death spread, angry residents of Fashloum took to the streets and blocked the main road for two days demanding action against the brigade that arrested him. The also called for action against a senior commander of Supreme Security Committee (SSC), Abdul Rauf Karah, who has overall control of the unit that held Abani.
The special unit in question was formed as a result of consultations between all units of SSC Tripoli in August 2012. The units decided to form a special force to cope with the threat of drugs that was growing rapidly. It was decided that ten members would be selected from all units that would join this special unit. It took three months before some 140 members were selected and then trained. The unit went operational on 1 December 2012 and it conducted several operations since, seizing huge quantities of drugs and alcohol.
The spokesman of the unit, Osama Qamboor, told the Libya Herald that they were informed by people in Fashloum about the presence of Abani but he disapeared before they arrived there. “We ultimately arrested him in Ghout Al-Shaal without any gun battle. He was then taken to the headquarters from where he was transferred to the prison.”
According to initial reports, Abani was tortured to death but these claims have been denied by Karah, who has claimed that the man died of cold, having been left outside all night. Qamboor restates the denial. “We can’t say if he was hit during some sort of struggle inside the car but once he arrived at the headquarters, he was not tortured at all. It’s impossible that something happened to him in the prison.”
Maintaining likewise that Abani died of cold, he said that the exact cause could only be determined once the investigation was finished. “Doctors said that he died of cold but I cannot speculate on the cause of his death. It will be clear once the investigation is completed.”
Qamboor blamed the drug dealers for the trouble in front of the Mitigaa airbase and said that those who gathered outside the base on Wednesday were only looking for trouble. “We pulled inside the base as we wanted to avoid any confrontation. These 25-30 men were only looking for trouble. They also fired shots in the air and towards the base.”
Qamboor claimed that Abani was one of the biggest drug dealers of North Africa and they had evidence to prove it. “We have concrete evidence against him. We were following him for some time. People from Fashloum initially reported his activities to us and then we started gathering all the evidence. He was not only involved but was the main supplier of drugs here.”
Some people hold Abdul Rauf Karah, commander of around 49 reinforcement units under the SSC, as responsible for Abani’s death. Deputy Interior Minister Omar Khadrawi also named Karah in reference to last week’s clashes in Tripoli in a cabinet meeting and said that the death of Abani would be investigated.
However, present at a meeting discussing the current situation with other notables from his constituency of Suq Al-Juma, Congressman Ehmeda Saleh Assaid Eddali expressed support for Karah and called for strict action against what he called an ‘organised drug ring’. He told the Libya Herald that the issue was not between personalities but about the evil of drugs in the Libyan society. He also said that the evil of drugs was now in academic institutions and it has even started reaching primary schools, corrupting the young students.
Eddali said that he and others were building Libya for the future generation and everybody should work together to make it a country free of this evil. The trade in alcohol and drugs, he added, were endangering the security and stability of Libya and should be stopped with force.
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