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By Farah Waleed.
Benghazi, 1 September 2014:
The House of Representatives has summonsed the Grand Mufti, Sheikh Sadik Al-Ghariani, together with the Governor . . .[restrict]of the Central Bank of Libya, Saddek Elkaber, and his two deputy governors, for questioning. The summons, which followed the HoR’s decision to ask Abdullah Al-Thinni to form a new government, is seen as a preliminary move before sacking them and bringing both the bank and the religious establishment fully under government control.
Last month, the former chief of staff, Major-General Abdussalam Obeidi, was likewise summonsed for questioning by the HoR before being dismissed.
According to an HoR member, the House wants Ghariani to explain his repeated support for the Libya Dawn operation in Tripoli and the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shoura Council, both of which it has condemned. On several occasions he said that anyone who died fighting Khalifa Hafter’s Operation Dignity forces in Benghazi or the Qaaqaa and Sawaiq brigades in Tripoli would be a martyr and go to heaven while members of Operation Dignity and the two Zintani brigades who died would go to hell. He refers to the Zintanis as “traitors”.
He is not expected to go to Tobruk. He has repeatedly denounced the HoR as illegal. However, if he did not turn up, the House member said, he would be sacked.
Until this weekend Ghariani spent several months in the UK, supposedly for medical treatment. However, he fled with his son last week after it emerged that the British authorities were investigating him for alleged incitement to murder and violence in Libya. He is currently said to be in Qatar.
There have been numerous demonstrations and calls from prominent political figures in recent weeks demanding he be sacked. Former National Transitional Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said in June he should be dismissed after he claimed that Hafter and his forces were “transgressors” and that they were waging a war not against terrorists but against Islam. Earlier, former Prime Minister Ali Zeidan suggested that the Grand Mufti had lost his sanity and had to go. Current Prime Minister Thinni last week condemned him for his fatwas, saying they were biased and ideologically motivated.
Central Bank governor Elkaber has also been targeted by the Prime Minister. In April, he accused him of exceeding his powers and refusing to release funds approved by Congress. He “acts as the ruler of Libya and does whatever he wants”, Thinni said at the time.
If Elkaber is replaced, it would result in a major financial boost to the government and the HoR even if he refused to go. The lions’s share of Libya’s financial assets are abroad. Institutions and banks around the world will cooperate only with Central Bank officials working with a head of the bank seen as legitimate – which now means someone endorsed by the HoR. [/restrict]
