Tripoli, 21 January 2013:
A series of meetings were held on Saturday and Sunday involving the leaders of the capital’s military councils . . .[restrict]as well as battalions and back-up and special security teams at Mitiga airbase. It is reported that they agreed to find solutions to concerns over law and order in the city and to respond strongly against anyone who tries to undermine its security, disrupt people’s work or close roads.
It is also reported that they further agreed that battalions from outside Tripoli must leave and that the Al-Qaaqaa battalion had three days to hand over a number of wanted men.
The meetings follow the killing of a man from Tripoli’s Zawiat Al-Dahmani district and complaints from the leader of Tripoli local council, Sadat Elbadri, about the activities of militias from outside the city. He went on television on Friday night to broadcast them.
The dead man, a well-known and respected former revolutionary who has been named as Tohamy Duaibi, was shot a fortnight ago. He and friends were staying out late on a farm by the Airport Road. He was shot in the abdomen when four armed men arrived at the property around midnight, ordered everyone to lie on the ground and he refused. He was rushed for treatment in Tunisia but died there last Friday. His funeral was held on Saturday.
On the same day that he died, a protest against drug usage and dealers took place initially in Algeria Square, but later because of its size moved on to Martyrs’ Square. It had been approved by the authorities. However, a heavily armed security detachment from outside Tripoli unexpectedly installed itself outside the council building in Algeria Square in the mid afternoon saying it was there to “police” the event. Insignia on its armoured vehicles proclaimed it to be the “Thunderbolt Battalion” from the Ministry of Defence.
Their presence angered locals who saw it as a provocation. Others were also angry because they believed the brigade to be linked to the men who killed Duaibi.
Elbadri told the Libya Herald that it and the killing of Duaibi, whom he called a good man, were a last straw. “I have been patient”, he said, but people had been complaining for days about the presence and activities of militias in the city and saying that something had to be done. His hope had been that these could be dealt with through patience.
Elbadri said that he phoned the head of Tripoli police, Mahmoud Sharif, and the Deputy Minister of Defence, Khalid Sharif, for an explanation of the battalion’s presence in the square. “They were surprised. They did not know anything about it.”
It has been alleged that the killers of Duaibi were members of the Qaaqah battalion.
One of the killers is reported to have been arrested but that the three others were still being sought. [/restrict]
