By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 12 November 2013:
The General National Congress (GNC) today voted to keep the assignment of the Libya Revolutionaries Operation . . .[restrict]Room (LROR) to secure Tripoli, but under the control of the office of the General Chief of Staff.
Out of 166 Congress members, 85 voted in favour of the transfer of the LROR, which was formerly under the Control of GNC head Nuri Abu Sahmain.
The decision came as a surprise to the group of 94 Congress members who recently staged a walk-out protest at a GNC sitting, making three demands, one of which was to cancel the assignment of the LROR, under Abu Sahmain, to protect and secure Tripoli.
“We were shocked because, with 94 members, we had expected to win the vote,” Beida Congresswoman Zainb Haroun Targhi told the Libya Herald. “But actually only 77 members voted against keeping the LROR.” She added that these 77 had wanted to cancel the assignment of the LROR because all the procedures in establishing it had been “illegal.”
Targi said most of the Congress members who voted for the transfer of the LROR were from the Justice and Construction Party and the Al-Wafa bloc. They did so, she said, based on laws No. 53 and 27 to clear Tripoli of all armed groups and bring them under the authority of the army or the police.
Under today’s decision, Targhi said, individual members of the LROR now have the choice of joining either the Ministry of Defence or Interior. [/restrict]
