By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, 8 February 2014:
Political prisoners held under the old regime are to start receiving compensation payments from tomorrow.
Cheques . . .[restrict]will initially be given to 618 former prisoners who have been selected as priority cases fulfilling a number of criteria, according to a spokesperson for the legal team representing the prisoners, Abdul-Hamid Naas.
The files of all those seeking compensation had been sent for review to the Ministry of Finance, he said, adding that this was to ensure there was no duplication of payment. Procedures had been put in place in every city, to allow former prisoners the opportunity to receive their cheques from local courts, so they would not have to travel to Tripoli, Naas added.
This first distribution will come from LD 300 million allocated in the 2013-14 budget as compensation for political prisoners. This is the first tranche from a fund totalling LD 2.4 billion. [/restrict]
