By Muttaz Mohamed Ali.
Tripoli, 2 April 2014:
Embattled Congress President Nuri Abu Sahmain has said that he has no plans . . .[restrict]to resign. Instead he has tried to focus attention on the controversial decision by the man who would effectively replace him if he were forced from office, First Deputy President of Congress Ezzidden Al-Awami, to release the three Libyans caught aboard the oil tanker Morning Glory.
Speaking on Al Nabaa TV this evening, he said that Awami had taken the decision against his own advice that it was up to the Attorney General to decide.
“While I was in Kuwait attending the Arab Summit, I received a phone call from the First Deputy President Ezzidden Al-Awami, telling me that the Attorney General had been in contact with the GNC asking for permission to release the armed people. I answered him that this was responsibility of the Attorney General and that the General National Congress had nothing to do with it.”
The aim, he said, was probably to “finish the oil ports crisis which is something we all supported”. But it was for Attorney General to decide, not Al-Awami, he said.
Congress members yesterday told the Libya Herald that there was now consensus to sack Abu Sahmain following the publication of a video in which he admits that he was taken in for questioning by a militia at the beginning of January over the presence of two women at his house. He had previously denied being arrested.
Both the video and the incident are under investigation by the Attorney General although it appears that many members of Congress are more concerned about the suggestion of immorality rather than the idea that Abu Sahmain may have lied. [/restrict]
