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A Maltese man was arrested in Libya a month ago and his partner has raised concerns about his wellbeing as she faces a bureaucratic wall of silence.

Jesmond Vella, aged 45, known as Il-Bulgaru, was arrested at Zuwarah on suspicion of human smuggling and drug trafficking on April 5.

The operation was carried out by the Rada Special Deterrence Forces, in what was initially feared to be a kidnapping. But it later transpired that the order of the arrest came from the Libyan Attorney General, sources told Times of Malta.

Vella, who has been living in the coastal city of Zuwarah with his Maltese wife for eight years, is also known to the Maltese police.

When contacted, the Maltese ambassador to Libya, Charles Saliba, who is closely following the case, said Vella has not yet been formally charged with the crime.

Lovin Malta reported that Vella, a mechanic, may have suffered a beating or torture in a country still reeling with unrest.

Vella's wife said he had been kidnapped and is currently being held by a militia outside of Tripoli and that bureaucracy and a breakdown in communication are proving troublesome for Maltese authorities and the family, who fear he is in grave danger and may never return home.

She recalled the day when her husband went missing on April 5, saying she returned home when she discovered her husband's car parked in the driveway. His keys were still in the ignition and his cigarettes were left on the driver seat.

The next day she raised the alarm with the Maltese authorities who believe Vella is being detained at Rada's headquarters at Mitiga airport.

Confronted by the claims, the ambassador said: There is a process we need to follow. We have nothing to back claims that he has been tortured. But we will give all the assistance we can.

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Wall of silence one month after Maltese man is arrested in Libya - Times of Malta

CAIRO (AP) Libyas top diplomat Monday called for the departure of foreign forces and mercenaries from the North African country as it heads toward elections later this year.

Najla al-Manqoush, foreign minister of Libyas interim government, urged Turkey to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding the repatriation of more than 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries from Libya.

Her remarks came at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He visited the capital of Tripoli with Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and other top military and intelligence officials.

We call on (Turkey) to take steps to implement all the provisions of ... the Security Council resolutions and to cooperate together to expel all foreign forces and mercenaries from the Libyan territories, she said.

The remarks were seen as a rebuke to Turkey, which has deployed troops and Syrian mercenaries to fight along with Tripoli militias since forces of military commander Khalifa Hifter launched their attack on the capital in 2019.

Cavusoglu responded by saying that Turkish forces were in Libya as part of a training agreement reached with a previous Libya administration. There are those who equate our legal presence ... with the foreign mercenary groups that fight in this country for money, he said.

Turkey has been closely involved in Libya. It backed the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord based in Tripoli against Hifters forces. Turkey sent military supplies and fighters to Libya helping to tilt the balance of power in favor of the GNA.

Turkey also signed an agreement with the Tripoli-based government delineating the maritime boundaries between the two countries in the Mediterranean. That triggered protests from Greece and Cyprus. Both countries denounced the agreement saying it was a serious breach of international law that disregarded the rights of other eastern Mediterranean countries.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The oil-rich country was in recent years split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by different armed groups and foreign governments.

Libyas interim government, which took power in March, is tasked with bringing together a country that has been torn apart by civil war for nearly a decade. It also aims to steer Libya through a general election on Dec. 24.

Security Council diplomats say there are more than 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, including 13,000 Syrians and 11,000 Sudanese, along with Russians and Chadians.

The Security Councils 15 member nations agreed in an informal meeting last week that getting the foreign fighters and mercenaries to go home was the only way forward, according to the officials.

___

Associated Press writer Suzan Frazer contributed from Ankara, Turkey.

Original post:
Libya top diplomat urges Turkey to withdraw foreign fighters - Associated Press

The Muslim Brotherhood in Libya has converted into a nongovernmental organization (NGO), the group said Sunday.

In a written statement, the organization said it has changed its name to the Resurrection and Reform Society.

"We declare to all Libyans that, with the grace and help of Allah, the community has turned into an association called the Resurrection and Reform Society in order to revive the call of the community to obey the middle way approach and teachings of Islam," it said on its social media page.

The decision was made at its 11th convention, where many workshops and "dialogue tours" were held. The group aims to convey its message by working intensively in various public areas in Libya.

Abdurrezzak Sergen, a former member of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the organization's political wing, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the group had decided that its work should only be within Libya, so it had turned into an NGO.

Sergen noted that after this decision, the organization had no connections outside of Libya, it was not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, and it became an independent society that only works within the country.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928. It was blacklisted by Egyptian authorities in 2013 following the ouster of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, in a military coup led by then military general Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

Following the transition of power, the Egyptian military crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in a major crackdown, arresting Morsi and many of the group's other leaders, who have been in prison undergoing multiple trials ever since the coup, drawing condemnation from the United Nations.

Since 2014, authorities in Jordan have also considered it illegal, arguing its license was not renewed under a 2014 law on political parties.

It continued to operate, but its relations with the Jordanian state deteriorated further from 2015 when the government authorized an offshoot group, the Muslim Brotherhood Association.

In April 2016, security services closed the Brotherhood's Amman headquarters and several regional offices, transferring their ownership to the splinter group in a step the movement denounced as political.

The original Brotherhood took the case to court in a bid to retrieve the properties, but the court in its verdict Wednesday ordered it dissolved.

The Brotherhood argues that it had already obtained licenses to operate under previous laws in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Libyan Muslim Brotherhood converts into NGO | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

TRIPOLI -Libyan political analysts view with suspicion the slowing down of the appointment process for new figures in key government positions.

They do not rule out the possibility that the ultimate aim of the jockeying around the process aims to delay the appointments so as to maintain the incumbents in place, especially the governor of the Central Bank, Saddek Elkaber, who has been entrenched in the same position for nearly ten years.

The analysts believe that current limbo may be the result of a deal between the Speaker of Parliament, Aguila Salehand the Speaker of the State Council, Khaled al-Mishri.

The State Council wrote to the House of Representatives (Parliament) on Saturday regarding the nominations for the sovereign positions to be filled, saying, We have noticed that the outputs referred to us from your committee are inconsistent with what was previously agreed upon in Bouznikas meetings. This indicates that there is a different basis for the work of the committees in the two chambers .

While the State Council lauded the House of Representatives efforts to reach a consensus regarding the holders of the leadership positions in sovereign posts pursuant to Article 15 of the Political Agreement on consultation between the two chambers in particular, the Council pointed out however that it remains committed to what has been previously agreed.

It added that in case parliament wishes to make any modifications to the criteria and mechanisms, we have no objection to holding additional meetings and discussions to reach common ground.

The position of the State Council strengthened suspicions about its intent to circumvent the Bouznika understandings on the reshuffling of sovereign positions, so as to keep the incumbents in their posts.

Sayyida al-Yaqoubi, a member of the State Council and the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, expressed the belief that with Mishris message, it seemed that the deal between the two councils (the State Council and the House of Representatives) was over.

She added in a Facebook post, There are indications of delays on the horizon. Where has the State Council been all this time?

It did not mention before the procedures followed in nominating candidates for sovereign positions, while now it occurs to it to suspend the process under the pretext of the procedures agreed upon in Bouznika.

Former member of the General National Congress, Tawfiq al-Shuhaibi, said, In short, the sovereign positions will not be changed, adding, There is a distribution of roles between the presidents of the House of Representatives and the State Council and the goal is to keep Elkaber and others in position. The comprehensive solution resides in holding parliamentary and presidential elections at the same time.

Observers link the stalled parliamentary approval of the 2021 budget to disagreements over the distribution of sovereign positions. This means that the budget crisis is on its way to a solution since an understanding has been reached over the sovereign positions.

The same observers do not rule out that international stakeholders in Libya, especially Turkey, that have close ties to the Libyan central bank governor, could be behind the delay which deprives Libyans of the opportunity to replace a figure accused of gross mismanagement that has adversely impacted the living conditions of the population.

The oil-rich North African nation has gone through many crises during Elkabers tenure, starting with the liquidity crisis and the salary freeze, to the decline of the dinars exchange value against the dollar, which has had a disastrous effect on Libyans purchasing power.

Despite decisions by the House of Representatives to remove him from office, Elkaber , who is perceived as a Muslim Brotherhood protg, has kept his post.

The authorities in the east and the tribes supporting them have often accused the Central Bank of Libya of distributing wealth unfairly and favouring pro-Islamist businessmen as well as the authorities in the west, while marginalising the eastern region, where most of the oil fields are located.

Last week, the Libyan parliament said it had sent the names of its nominees for sovereign positions to the State Consultative Council.

These positions include the governor of the Central Bank of Libya, the heads of the Higher National Elections Commission, the Audit Bureau, the Administrative Control Authority, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Attorney General and the president of the Supreme Court.

On April 20, the Libyan parliament chose the head of the investigations department in the office of the Attorney General Al-Siddiq Al-Sour to be Attorney General.

The criteria for selecting candidates were agreed upon in the Bouznika talks in Morocco, last October, based on quotas between Libyas three historical regions (Tripoli, Cyrenaica and Fezzan).

Article 15 of the Political Agreement provides for consultations between parliament and the State Consultative Council to determine who will hold these positions.

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Libya's delay in filling key positions seems aimed at keeping central bank governor in place | | AW - The Arab Weekly

Fri, Apr 30, 2021

MENASourcebyEmadeddin Badi

French President Emmanuel Macron flanked by Mahamat Idriss Deby, son of the late Chadian president, arrives to attend the state funeral for the late Chadian President Idriss Deby in N'Djamena, Chad April 23, 2021. Christophe Petit Tesson/Pool via REUTERS

On April 20, after clashes that pitted the Chadian national army against rebels in the Kanem region of northern Chad, the countrys President Idriss Dby was killed. Dby, a larger than life figure that had ruled the country for over three decades, had flown to northern Chad to visit his troops at the military frontline.

With his death, FranceChads former colonial powerlost one of its closest allies in the Sahel, an arid, underdeveloped area stretching from Senegal to Sudan where jihadists have thrived on surrounding states governance failures. At his funeral on April 23, French President Emmanuel Macron declared: We will not let anybody put into question or threaten Chads stability and territorial integrity. This comes as no surprise. France had been buttressing Dbys rule ever since it supported the coup dtat which brought him to power in 1990.

French troops, reconnaissance aircraft, and warplanes were often deployed to support Dby whenever rebels and opposition groups mobilized to unseat him. This time, however, the tyrants propensity for frontline spectacles proved to be his undoing. Far from being the sole architect of his premature death, the conditions that led to Dbys passing are also a direct byproduct of the myopic policies of his main Western allyFrancein neighboring Libya. Dbys death illustrates inherent flaws in French foreign policy in Libya and Chad and the shortcomings of Paris impulse to prop up autocrats in Africa.

The rebels that launched an incursion into northern Chad were from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), a rebel group founded by dissident Chadian army officers in 2016, with the explicit aim of overthrowing Dby. FACT had launched their offensive into northern Chad from Libyas southern region of Fezzan right after presidential elections were organized in their home country on April 11.

In Libya, FACT fighters operated for years as guns-for-hire, offering their services to the highest bidder. They also benefit from equipment supplied by the conflict parties and raise revenue through criminal economic activities, such as trafficking, smuggling, and gold mining. For the better part of FACTs existencethe bulk of which was spent in Libyamost of the groups fighters have been aligned and fighting on behalf of General Khalifa Haftar, the chief of the Libyan National Army. Aside from benefitting from weaponry supplied to Haftar by his foreign backers, FACT fighters even received training from Russias Wagner Group mercenaries as part of Haftars attempted coupwhich France politically abetted and militarily supportedagainst the then United Nations-recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli in 2019.

This backing was not new. For years, Haftars chief political backer in Western policymaking circles has been France. This disconcerting support had catapulted the septuagenarian general into political relevance despite his clear authoritarian aspirations. Haftars claim of building a professional military institution was often uncritically echoed by Paris despite it being a fallacy intended to veil a highly personalized style of rule. It was belied by the generals handing of key positions to his sons, reliance on irregular tribal groups, empowerment of hardline Salafi factions, and expedient co-option of local criminal militias and mercenaries for his broader designs. Foreign troopssuch as Sudanese and Chadian rebelshave long been a key holding and fighting force within the ranks of Haftars troops, though much of the international media attention has only been on the Russian Wagner Group mercenaries that now operate in his territory. Yet, despite the clear implication of attacks against civilians and war crimes by his amalgam of forces, France never revised its long-standing support for the general. This doubling down on Haftar often puzzled observers because, unlike with Chads Dby, propping up an ailing general like him could never be remotely argued to be pragmatic.

In the rare instances where their support for Haftar was acknowledged, French policymakers often justified their partnership with the general by portraying him as an ally that could counter Libyan Islamist and jihadist militias with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). By supporting Haftar, they saw another Franco-African military alliance forged, enhancing the Sahels security. This prompted France to support Haftars military operations in Benghazi in 2015 clandestinely, deploy reconnaissance aircraft to back his territorial expansion, and embed French forces operating US-manufactured anti-tank missiles with his troops during his botched 2019 coup.

Despite fully knowing that mercenaries were part and parcel of Haftars forces, French bestowal of international legitimacy to him via diplomatic engagement was complemented with military support that effectively never abated. This backing not only added a key Western ally to the numerous foreign powerssuch as Egypt, Russia, and the United Arab Emiratesalready bolstering the general, it also was at cross-purposes with every French premise to support him. Haftar jettisoned Libyas political transition, created the space for jihadists to thrive by ushering in an internationalized civil war, and the repercussions of his French-backed actions have now caused direct instability in the Sahel.

To see one of Frances most reliableyet autocraticpartners in the Sahel being killed by mercenaries that benefitted from the military support and incompetence of another Paris-supported aspiring authoritarian in Libya is a cynical twist of fate. Both the Chadian and Libyan theaters highlight Frances overlooking of dismal records in corruption, human rights violations, and contempt for democratic values in favor of a narrow securitized outlook that prioritizes a false sense of security and illusory stability. With Dby unexpectedly gone, Chads transition hangs in the balance while France scrambles to back what is effectively another coupby none other than Dbys sonunder the guise of preserving continuity. One can only hope that Paris takes heed of its current predicament in Chad to amend its Libya policy, because Chad, Libya, and the Sahel can only truly be stable when France does away with its flawed, long-standing approach to the region.

Emadeddin Badi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Councils Middle East Program. Follow him on Twitter @emad_badi.

Originally posted here:
Dby's death: A microcosm of the flaws of French foreign policy in Libya - Atlantic Council