By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 28 July 2013:
The Libyan government is to seek international help in forensic criminal investigation, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan revealed at yesterday’s press conference.
Zeidan’s government has promised to pursue criminals, including those who have used arms, for months. After every incident his government has maintained that it is investigating crimes, but to date there have been no breakthroughs or convictions.
Public pressure for results has increased on the Zeidan government as the number of incidents has increased, culminating in demonstrations and road blocks this weekend in response to the recent spate of assassinations.
Yesterday, Zeidan finally admitted indirectly that the Libyan Forensic and Criminal Investigation Departments are incapable of conducting investigations on their own that are likely to lead to arrests and convictions.
“Investigations are continuing”, he repeated, “and we are making progress in getting information and we will announce soon the results”, he declared.
“We have requested an international forensic investigation team to work with local teams to help with the investigations”, he explained.
Asked by the media as to why his government’s investigations had led to no results, Zeidan replied: “you know upon the revolution that all the security forces, criminal investigation teams, police and internal police were ended and ignored for a long period”.
“We have sought help from numerous nations and we are doing what we can”, he added, defending his government’s record.
“Even in advanced nations investigations can take long. This is not a failure of the government”, he stressed, “it is a weakness of the whole (Libyan) state. That is why we have asked for a friendly country to help in the investigations”.
Asked by the media to name the state providing this help and questioned on the legality of using external security agencies to investigate crimes in Libya, Zeidan stressed that the help sought would be technical, scientific and investigative in nature and would not break any Libyan laws. [/restrict]
