Tunisia said on Thursday it had arrested and jailed former Libyan prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi
Mahmudi, one of the most senior aides to former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to have been detained, was sentenced to six months in prison for illegal entry, Tunisian justice ministry spokesman Kadhem Zine el Abidine said said.
Baghdadi was arrested on Wednesday and appeared before the state prosecutor in Tozeur, 430km south of Tunis when he was sentenced to six months in prison, “with immediate effect,” el Abidine said.
Tunisian Ministry of Justice spokesman Hichem Meddeb said Mahmudi was arrested along with two other men on Wednesday near Tamaghza on the Algerian border, traveling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Algeria has frosty relations with Libya’s new rulers and has given refuge to Qaddafi’s wife and three of his children.
“They were arrested because they didn’t have a Tunisian entry stamp,” Meddeb said, adding that Mahmudi’s arrest was not connected to his former role in the Qaddafi regime.
“As far as we are concerned these are foreign citizens who entered Tunisia illegally,” said Meddeb, who was not able to say if the men had arrived from Algeria or were in fact headed there.
Tunisia, ruled by an interim administration since the ouster of Former Tunisian leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in January, officially recognized Libya’s national Transitional Council (NTC) only on Aug. 21 during the dying days of the Qaddafi regime.
The country had previously observed a studied neutrality towards the warring sides, while taking in an estimated 700,000 refugees fleeing the conflict.
On Sept. 7, another member of Qaddafi’s inner circle, General Khouildi Hamidi, was briefly detained at Tunis airport for illegal entry. He had been about to board a flight bound for Casablanca, Morocco.
A Tunis court later dismissed the proceedings, which could have seen him jailed for up to a year, Hamidi’s lawyer Abdelbasset Bouhouli said on Thursday.
He said prosecutors had 10 days during which they could lodge an appeal with a higher court.
Hamidi’s passport has been returned and at this stage he is not being prevented from traveling, the lawyer said. Hamidi was part of the 1969 coup which saw Qaddafi take power. Since the former strongman’s 42-year-old regime started collapsing, many senior officials in his entourage have defected or fled, often transiting through neighboring Tunisia.
Visiting Tunis at the beginning of this month, NTC No. 2 Mahmoud Jibril discussed security with Tunisian interim Tunisian Prime minister Beji Caid Essebsi and underlined the need for cooperation between the two countries.
The NTC has said it wants to try former regime officials in Libya.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS