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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS