By Libya Herald staff.
Benghazi, 10 November 2014:
It is reported that Benghazi’s mayor, Tariq Al-Urfi, has disappeared and today been replaced . . .[restrict]by Omar Al-Barasi, chosen from among by the remaining councillors. The news has not been confirmed, although the head of the Central Committee for Municipal Council Elections, Otman Gajiji, told the Libya Herald that he had heard about it. However he “had no information”.
According to a prominent friend of Urfi who asked not to be named, the mayor “vanished” after an assassination attempt against him last week. “No one has seen him since”, the friend told this newspaper. He added the disappearance meant that four of the city’s nine councillors were no longer involved in the municipality: Essam Al-Ghariani had been kidnapped when his wife Salwa Bugaighis was murdered; Awad Alqawiri had resigned and not been replaced; Abdussalam Bassiouni had received death threats and left the city; and now Urfi had gone.
Said to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Urfi was elected mayor the day before Bugaighis was murdered and Ghariani taken, and there were complaints at the time that the authorities and councillors had moved with undignified but calculated haste to ensure that a Brotherhood member led the new council.
According to the friend, however, Urfi is: “a good man, very kind; but very weak. Not a leader.”
It is not known who tried to kill him. [/restrict]
