By Farah Waleed.
Tripoli 27 March 2013:
A delegation from the World Bank’s and the UN’s joint programme StAR (Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative) . . .[restrict]met today, Wednesday, with the Deputy Foreign Minister, Abdulrzaq Ghraidi, to assess steps taken so far to track down and return Libyan assets smuggled abroad.
StAR is involved helping Libya, along with Egypt and Tunisia, secure the return of assets from foreign jurisdictions.
The international delegation told the Libyan authorities that it had been tracking Libyan assets and was working to ensure that all funds found in foreign banks in the future would be repatriated, Foreign Ministry spokesman Badruddin al-Ghylushi told the Libya Herald.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed the prospects of enhancing cooperation between StAR and Libyan institutions seeking to recover stolen funds.
On 18 March, INTERPOL’s Secretary-General, Ronald K. Noble, on a visit to Tripoli, also promised Prime Minister Ali Zeidan that his organisation would help track down the “the millions if not billions in assets stolen by Colonel Qaddafi, his family and associates”.
The assets, he said, had to be recovered so that “they can be made available to and for the benefit of the people of Libya.” If INTERPOL were successful, then it would help Libya “in its efforts to build a peaceful, secure, independent and free Libya”. [/restrict]
