THE ousted Libyan PM Ali Zeidan has fled to Germany despite a travel ban slapped on him by Libya’s top prosecutor for his suspected involvement in embezzlement of public funds.
Zeidan flew to Germany in defiance of a travel ban after changing planes in Malta, Maltese government sources said yesterday.
Zeidan arrived in Malta on a Libyan state plane on Tuesday evening but then switched to a private jet after a brief stopover before departing for Germany, they said.
That version of events differed slightly from the account given by Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in a television interview.
‘The plane stopped in Malta for two hours to refuel before proceeding to another European country,’ Muscat said.
Zeidan arrived in Malta hours after losing a vote of confidence in the Libyan parliament.
Libya’s top prosecutor late on Tuesday slapped a travel ban on Zeidan because of his suspected involvement in the embezzlement of public funds. Muscat said he met Zeidan briefly during the stopover but government sources later clarified that the two men had only talked by telephone.
Zeidan was ousted after a North Korean-flagged tanker laden with crude oil from a rebel-held terminal broke through a naval blockade and escaped to sea. The episode underlined the weakness of Zeidan’s government, which failed to deal with the militias that have carved out their own fiefdoms in Libya after the 2011 imperialist-backed coup that murdered Gadaffi. Zeidan was even briefly abducted by a former rebel militia in the heart of the capital last October.
Meanwhile, militias loyal to the Tripoli authorities were advancing on eastern Libya Wednesday where rebels demanding regional autonomy have begun exporting oil in defiance of the central government, both sides said.
Rebel fighters of the Cyrenaica Defence Force pulled back to the eastern region’s historic border after pro-Tripoli militia of the Libya Shield Force pushed them out of the central coastal city of Sirte late on Tuesday, a rebel commander said.
The commander warned that the offensive by the fighters, mostly from Libya’s third city Misrata, risked plunging the North African country back into civil war.
The advancing force was ‘a tribal militia not a regular army unit’, he said, asking not to be identified. ‘Our forces have pulled back to Wadi Lahmar,’ some 90 kilometres (60 miles) east of Sirte, he added.
The town lies on the historic border between Tripolitania and the Cyrenaica region, whose pre-1963 autonomy the rebels want restored.
The chairman of Sirte city council, Abdelfattah al-Siwi, said there had been a ‘brief confrontation’ between the rival fighters before the rebels withdrew. The opposing forces were allies during the NATO-backed coup but the Cyrenaican fighters’ move at the weekend to load oil onto a North Korean-flagged tanker in a deal not sanctioned by the state-run National Oil Corporation prompted the Tripoli authorities to order military action.
The rebels had been blockading the main eastern oil export terminals since last July but the loading of the Morning Glory marked a major escalation of the conflict and prompted parliament to oust prime minister Ali Zeidan on Tuesday.
The speaker of the General National Congress, Nuri Abu Sahmein, who is also commander in chief, gave orders on Monday for a task force to be formed to recapture the rebel-held ports, composed of loyalist militia as well as regular troops in the absence of a big enough army unit.
The threatened assault on export terminals that constitute a key part of Libya’s oil infrastructure helped push up world prices on Tuesday.
The rebels’ prolonged blockade of the ports already slashed Libyan exports from 1.5 million barrels per day to just 250,000.
• A group of protestors on Tuesday tried to storm a hotel in Tripoli where the General National Congress (GNC) was holding its session. This came after news that the North Korean oil tanker had left Al-Sidrah port and entered international waters.
GNC sources told WAL news agency that security personnel had managed to disperse the protesters without allowing them to storm the venue while the GNC continued its meeting.
Libya’s General National Congress has ordered the formation of a military force to liberate three eastern oil terminals occupied by armed groups seeking to export crude oil outside the control of the government, Al-Jazeera reported on 10 March.
In an emergency meeting, the GNC’s interior, defence and national security committees held consultations with the national army’s general staff command about the decision on the formation of the force and the military operation to start within one week. The force will be made up of regular soldiers, oil installations guards and allied rebels from all Libyan regions, GNC spokesman Umar Humaydan said. The force is to be based in the cities of Sirte, Ajdabiyah and Jufrah and its main task is to liberate and secure the oil ports and to restore government control over them, he said.
The move came after the Libyan authorities said they seized a North Korean-flagged tanker that loaded crude oil at a port controlled by rebel groups. Libyan Minister of Oil-designate Umar al-Shakmak said that unconfirmed information indicates that the tanker’s owner is possibly a private company or a Saudi businessman.
The Libyan authorities contacted North Korea’s embassy in Tripoli to officially convey their protest at the tanker entering the Libyan territorial waters without permission, Al-Shakmak said. The Ministry of Oil took several measures to prevent the unauthorised sales of crude oil illegally shipped by vessels from rebel militia-controlled ports in international markets, he added. Meanwhile, dignitaries from the eastern region issued statements rejecting any oil sales outside the control of the government.
Scores of oil workers staged a protest outside the Ministry of Oil in Tripoli against the North Korean-flagged tanker’s entry into the rebel-controlled port of Sidra in violation of Libyan sovereignty. They also highlighted the ordeal of their colleagues being coerced by the force of arms to work in the rebel-controlled ports, and urged the government to stop oil exports from these terminals.
• Workers of Libyan Central Bank on Tuesday morning held protests against the abduction of two colleagues yesterday by unknown people. According to WAL news agency, two workers, one employee and a member of the security staff, were abducted near Al-Aziziyah district, in Tripoli, while returning from work in the Gharyan city branch of the bank.
The abductors, armed with guns, took them to an unknown location. The protestors demanded that the authorities initiate a thorough investigation into the incident as it adversely affects the lives of other bank employees.