By Rahman Jahangir.
Dhaka, 5 July:
Charge d’ Affaires of the Libyan Embassy in Dhaka Kamel Al-Mahjoub has warned that the Dhaka-Tripoli relationship . . .[restrict]might be harmed because the Bangladeshi media had run false reports about him and the Libyan Embassy.
Speaking at a press conference at a local hotel on Wednesday, he said that Libya might even halt the recruitment of workers from Bangladesh over the matter.
It was reported that he had fled Bangaldesh after misappropriating some 1,000 million taka paid by Bangladeshis for Libyan work visas.
Denying all allegations of misappropriation, Mahjoub called upon the media which ran reports about him to apologise. Otherwise, legal measures would be taken against them, he warned.
He said that there were those who wanted to spoil the relationship between the two countries and if the relationship were affected Bangladesh will lose.
He also said that the allegations against him had dishonoured him and Libya.
“Libya has no obligation that it will have to recruit manpower only from Bangladesh. Many other countries are interested. We will be able to take people from those countries”, said the diplomat.
“It is not our fault. Your media is creating opportunity for others”, he said.
Mahjoub further said, “The officials of our country are very angry. A committee will visit Bangladesh at any moment. They will have a meeting with the officials concerned in Bangladesh to know what my or our embassy’s fault was.”
Officials at the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry were, however, surprised over Mahjoub’s angry reaction to media reports and said that bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Libya would never be harmed by media reports. “Our brothers in Libya should not leave the time-tested strong diplomatic relations to the whims of media,” they said. [/restrict]
