Tripoli, 27 August . . .[restrict]2013:
Unood Senussi, the daughter of Qaddafi’s former spy chief Abdullah Senussi, is to be released from prison, after serving ten months for entering Libya on a false passport.
Justice Minister Salah Al-Marghani said yesterday at a press conference that “special procedures” had been started in preparation for Senussi’s release. He said that because she had served her jail term, Senussi would be released as soon as these procedures had been completed.
Senussi was arrested at the Cleopatra Hotel in the Dahra district of Tripoli in October last year with a passport which omitted her family name, and a large quantity of US dollars.
The passport bore her first names, Unood Abdallah Mohammed, but left out the family name of Senussi. Her arrest came just hours after she flew into Libya from Algeria, where she had been living since the outbreak of the revolution. It is understood that she was recognised at Tripoli airport.
In court Senussi pleaded not guilty and her lawyers claimed that there had been a mix-up with her name on the passport.
She was, however, found guilty and sentenced to a ten-month prison term, which she has served in the Al-Ruwaimi jail in Ain Zara. In an interview with the Libya Herald in March this year, she said she had been treated well, and had been allowed to visit her father.
She said that ten other women in the prison, all of whom had apparently volunteered to join Qaddafi’s Peoples’ Guard, were not treated as well as she was.
Senussi also said that, once released, she planned to complete her studies in the field of law and try to help her father, who is awaiting trial in Hadba Al-Khadra prison on charges of crimes against humanity. She said she wanted him to stand trial at the International Criminal Court rather than in Libya. [/restrict]
