Tripoli, 28 March 2013:
A Libyan politician has accused Ahmed Qaddaf Al-Dam, Qaddafi’s cousin and former coordinator of Libyan-Egyptian relations, of being . . .[restrict]involved in the disappearance of Mansour Rashid El-Kikhia in Egypt in 1993.
The Secretary-General of the National Democratic Coalition, Ibrahim Amesh, confirmed to the Libyan news agency LANA that he has a number of documents that support his accusation.
El-Kikhia, Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs for a short period in the early 1970s who later opposed the Qaddafi regime, was abducted in Cairo. Foreign intelligence reports later suggested that the Egyptian secret service might have been involved in his abduction. His remains were discovered in Tripoli last year and he was buried in Benghazi in December.
Amesh is now in Cairo to hand copies of the documents in his possession to the Egyptian authorities.
Al-Dam remains in detention in Egypt after his arrest on 19 March, while Libya tries to secure his extradition. He is being be held for 30 days pending investigations by the Egyptian authorities into several charges against him, including allegedly opening fire on Egyptian police. Two leading Qaddafi-era officials, the former Libyan ambassador to Egypt Ali Mohamed Marya and Mohamed Ibrahim Mansour, who was a senior finance official, arrested with Al-Dam were flown to Tripoli on Tuesday.
Al-Dam’s lawyer, Esmat El-Merghany, is, however, fighting Libya’s extradition claim on the grounds that her client has Egyptian nationality. [/restrict]