Tripoli, 5 June 2012:
Following appeals and intensive lobbying, the NTC has issued an amended version of Law 36, removing a number of . . .[restrict]individuals and companies whose assets it had earlier frozen and moved to put into administration. They are being sequestrated on the basis that they were either associates of the former regime or were business entities inextricably linked into it.
Among those off the black list is Libyan entrepreneur Husni Bey as well as businesses such as Summa (which owns the Mahary Hotel), the infrastructure development body ODAC, LMC International Consulting and Germa Shipping.
The old list contained 336 names — 260 individuals and 78 companies. The new list in Law 47 contains only 241 names. However, it is not quite the full reduction it seems. In the first list, some companies were listed twice.
The new list also removes some surprising names, such as the Qaddafi Organisation for Charity, the Department of Revolutionary Guidance (a revolutionary committee organisation) and Aisha Qaddafi’s Libya Investment Association. It is said that the reason is that they have already been taken over by new administrators.
Others remain in the list, despite appeals, such as the Aman Bank and the Wafa Bank. As with others listed the plan is that the courts will appoint an administrator to run them.
There have been accusations that Law 36 was deeply unfair in its blanket approach to those listed. Husni Bey, for example, was known not only to have supported the revolution from the outset but helped fund it as well. There have been suggestions that there was deliberate malevolence in including him. It is pointed out, too, that there are some politicians who are known to have been involved with the Qaddafis but who have not been censured.
Speaking at the time Law 36 was issued, Husni Bey, who was imprisoned more than once by the Qaddafi regime and his assets seized twice lashed out at the injustice of the decision labelling it “criminal” and done “by some people for personal interests”. [/restrict]
