Libyan justice ministry lifts travel ban on Gadhafi family

Libya’s Justice Ministry of the Government of National Accord, GNA, has welcomed the decision of the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee to temporarily lift the travel ban on Safia Farkash al-Barassi, wife of the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gadhafi, her daughter, Aicha, and her son, Mohamed, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1970 of 2011.

The Security Council Sanctions Committee against Libya has decided to lift the travel ban on the three members of Gadhafi’s family for a period of six months for humanitarian reasons.

This decision will be effective from January 1 to May 31, 2021, and also requires them to inform the committee of travel information before moving, or within a month of reaching the destination.

In a statement released Thursday, the ministry said the decision was part of the approach of the GNA represented by the Presidential Council and the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs, “to place each Libyan citizen in the good legal position he deserves, according to the law, regardless of his personal status, his political orientations or his relations with the previous regime, as long as he has not carried out any act requiring legal proceedings.”

The statement added: “Based on this approach, the Ministry had previously supported the views of the Presidential Council regarding its request to the Sanctions Committee to raise the name of the aforementioned woman (Safia Farkach) and ensure that lifting be final and not temporary.

“It urged that the Committee be urged to do so urgently because the woman is not subject to legal prosecution. Her name should not appear on travel ban lists and no national authority has requested such a measure.”

It explained that the provisional measures taken against her by the national authorities “were made according to the provisions of the Guardianship Law No.36 of 2012 and its amendments, which is a law that only provides that the money of persons subject to its provisions be placed under general control.”

The ministry added: “Therefore, the provisions of the law relate to the imposition of precautionary measures which affect financial liability and do not extend to prejudice the right of those subject to them to free movement, which remains an original and guaranteed constitutional right for every Libyan citizen which cannot be violated except by virtue of a legal obligation and by decision of the competent authority of the United Nations in New York, which played a major role in the publication of this latest resolution.”

Members of Gadhafi’s family had different fortunes while Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, his most prominent son, was released after being imprisoned in Zenten (about 180 km southwest of Tripoli), but is still the subject of a search warrant by the International Criminal Court.

His son, Saadi, is imprisoned in Tripoli. Gadhafi’s wife, Safia, his daughter, Aïcha, and his eldest son, Mohamed, from his first marriage, are in the Sultanate of Oman after having passed through Algeria in 2011.

Hannibal Gadhafi is imprisoned in Lebanon while Moatassem, Seïf al-Arab and Khamis died, like their father, in 2011.

PANA/NAN