By Sami Zaptia.
London, 12 February 2016:
The office of the Libyan Attorney General (Public Prosecutor) based in Tripoli has issued a number of . . .[restrict]arrest warrants for financial corruption.
The revelation was made at a lengthy press conference held yesterday by Sidiq Al-Sour, head of the Investigations Department of the PPO, at Tripoli’s Court Complex.
Sour explained some of the major investigations by his department and that have attracted the attention of the general public and gained a lot of media publicity.
These cases included the money laundering / Letters of Credit (LCs) cases through which ‘’tens of millions’’ of FX were allegedly smuggled out of Libya. Sour said that his department had received numerous cases referred to it by the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) and the Audit Bureau.
Sour said that the PPO has issued ‘’tens of arrest warrants’’ for those against whom they have evidence of money laundering or through fake LCs or through false customs duty declarations.
With regards to the notorious ‘’empty containers’’ cases that had attracted much public attention and condemnation, he revealed that the PPO had inspected 50 containers at Tripoli port and that these inspections had revealed that these containers did not contain what they had declared that they were importing.
Sour also added that there were also about 200 other containers in Misrata and Khoms ports. Arrest orders were issued in connection with all these cases he reported.
Sour also revealed that arrest warrants are being issued against a number of businessmen, bank managers, heads of credit departments as well as anybody else elsewhere connected to the abuse of public funds. He confirmed that at least one businessman had already been arrested and interrogated. [/restrict]
