Africa

Home page

Africa

Interpol issues arrest alerts for two Libya officials

05 April 2012 21:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The global police agency Interpol issued alerts Thursday seeking the arrest of two senior officials in late Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s regime on suspicion of torture and kidnapping, APA reports quoting AFP.

A statement from the France-based body said Libya had requested assistance in detaining two officials identified as former interior minister Al-Senussi Alozyre, 63, and his former deputy Naser al-Mabruk, 60.

Both reportedly fled Libya during the uprising last year that toppled Kadhafi’s regime. They are "accused of a range of offences including carrying out illegal arrests, unjustified deprivation of personal liberty and torture".

Several other Libyan officials are subject to Interpol "Red Notice" arrest requests, including the dictator’s surviving sons and his former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, 62, who is being held in Mauritania.

"They are wanted for crimes against humanity and they have escaped Libya," a senior interior ministry official told AFP in Tripoli, adding that their whereabouts remain unknown.

Alozyre, who was the last interior minister under Kadhafi’s ousted regime, oversaw the dictator’s internal security agencies in the east of the country. He is accused of taking part in the former regime’s crackdown on Islamists during the 1980s and 1990s.

Former rebels briefly detained him after the start of the revolution in February last year but tribal reportedly leaders obtained his liberation.

He fled to Egypt and then Tunis before returning to Tripoli and assuming his post as Kadhafi’s final interior minister in March 2011.

Alozyre reportedly fled after the fall of Tripoli in August. Mabruk, who served in the interior ministry, also reportedly escaped after former rebels took over the capital.