Plans to use Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s assets abroad to aid Libyan rebels will prove legally difficult to execute, but may be possible under a UN convention allowing the recovery of ill-gained money, observers say.
Unlocking the Libyan leaders’ funds abroad would pose “many difficulties” as the international resolutions freezing them remained in force, said Giorgio Sacerdoti, international law professor at the University of Bocconi in Milan, Italy.
“The government in Tripoli has not disappeared and the resolutions of the UN and the European Union do not say that he [Qaddafi] is illegitimate,” Sacerdoti added.
The value of the Qaddafi clan’s assets frozen abroad is estimated at US$60 billion — more than half of it in the US. On Thursday, international powers pledged funds to aid Libyan rebels in their battle to oust the strongman, with donations going to a fund that will later be topped up with the frozen assets — an act the regime in Tripoli rejected as an act of “piracy on the high seas.”
The fund, agreed at a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya, is intended to provide an emergency lifeline to the rebels, whose provisional administration has no source of financing to replace receipts from oil exports, which have come to a virtual halt.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the unlocking of assets “poses legal problems,” as Italy and France urged the EU “to seek a solution,” adding: “That money belongs to the Libyan people.”
Rights group Transparency International mooted use of the UN Convention against Corruption, signed in 2003, which upholds as a “fundamental principle” the recovery of assets obtained illegally and held abroad.
The convention did not specify that assets could be returned only to states, said the body’s French president Daniel Lebegue.
“We will not return to dictators the proceeds of their pillaging,” he said. “Other solutions must be found for populations to benefit.”
International estimates are that corruption costs poor countries US$20 billion to US$40 billion per year. In more than 15 years, only US$5 billion has been returned.
The World Bank has launched the Stolen Asset Recovery initiative, dubbed Star, to finance development programs with recovered money.
In earlier cases, the assets of former presidents like the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, Nigeria’s Sani Abacha and Haiti’s Jean-Claude Duvalier, have been or are being returned to their countries, but only after their fall from power.
In order to avoid legal difficulties, the unfrozen money could be used to pay salaries, to buy medicines and supplies and for reconstruction, Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Ben Jassem al-Thani said — not to buy arms.
“The money must not go through the cash registers of the NTC [Libyan National Transitional Council], it should go directly to humanitarian programs via UN agencies for example,” Lebegue added. “It must benefit the people, not the leaders.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of