By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 24 June 2017:
The murder of an army colonel and his daughter in Tripoli yesterday was revenge for the death of a man from Wadi Al- Shaati during a prison breakout there last February, a relative of the slain officer claims.
Yesterday evening, Bashir Al-Hadi Al-Hasnawi, an army colonel from the Shatti area but who lived in semi-retirement in Tripoli, was killed along with his 20-year-old daughter as they drove off from their home in the capital’s Ain Zara district, not far from Salahadeen. The occupant of a car blocking the end of the road got out and shot at them with a Kalashnikov.
According to the member of Hasnawi’s family, the colonel was targeted because the killer had a grudge against the Hasawna tribe whom he blamed for his brother’s death at the time of the breakout from Wadi Al-Shatti’s Gurda prison in February. The brother was said to have been one of those involved in attacking the police jail and freeing the prisoners – allegedly mainly Islamists – and was killed in subsequent shooting between prison guards and the attackers. Many of the guards are said to have been members of the Hasawna tribe.
However, contrary to some reports, Hasnawi had not been in Wadi Al-Shatti at the time of the attack and not been working in the police-run prison there, the relative insisted, pointing out that his cousin had been an army colonel not a police colonel.
“He had no enemies, and was very popular with the neighbours”, the relative said. He added that the family blamed Islamists for the killing.
Those who were attacked the prison in February and those who had been held prisoner there had been Islamists, he said. His cousin, on the other hand, was not. He had supported the revolution and had been in Tripoli ever since, travelling south only when family affairs required it.
It is reported that a man accused of the crime has been arrested.
