TRIPOLI: The UN mission in Libya has expressed its concern over “continued abductions, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances of citizens and public figures by various security actors” in the war-ravaged country.
Among those who have gone missing is Faraj Abderrahmane Boumtari, a former finance minister.
On Wednesday, Boumtari “was reportedly detained at Mitiga Airport and taken to an undisclosed location,” the UN Support Mission in Libya said in a statement.
It added that “five members of the High Council of State have been reportedly banned from traveling at the same airport” in Tripoli.
UNSMIL warned that such acts create “a climate of fear, promote tensions between communities and tribes, and have serious implications for the unification of national institutions.”
Oil-rich Libya plunged into over a decade of chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Since then, the North African country has been divided, with one administration based in Tripoli and the other in the east where it is backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The UN urged the Libyan authorities and security organizations to “release all those arbitrarily detained, ensure independent investigations for all alleged extra-legal detentions and abductions and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
News of the Boumtari’s arrest by security agents at the airport on Wednesday quickly circulated, but has not yet been confirmed by the authorities.
Members of Boumtari’s tribe, the Zouaya from the southeast, threatened on Thursday to block oil terminals in the east if he was not released. But reports on social media on Thursday said that two oilfields in the south, at Al-Sharara and Al-Fil, had already been blockaded by protesters.
In a separate development, Libya’s sovereign wealth fund has filed a criminal complaint against Belgium’s Prince Laurent, accusing him of fraud and extortion linked to his bid to reclaim funds from a failed reforestation project, lawyers said on Friday.
The royal household and the king’s Cabinet did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The prince, brother of the king, and Libyan authorities signed a multimillion euro contract in 2008 aimed at reforesting desert regions of inland Libya. The project collapsed with the outbreak of civil war in Libya in 2011.
The Libyan Investment Authority alleges that the prince exerted “unacceptable pressure” in an attempt to obtain payment of nearly 70 million euros ($78.52 million) he says he is owed by the Libyan Ministry for Agriculture.
Law firm Jus Cogens, which represents the LIA, said it filed a criminal complaint against Prince Laurent for extortion, fraud and illegal influence on Thursday.
“We have communicated factual elements to the investigative judge showing, according to us, that Prince Laurent abused his status as a public office holder, claiming he could influence the criminal procedure against LIA and his CEO,” Christophe Marchand, founding partner at Jus Cogens, said.
Libya has been under international sanctions since 2011 and the country’s 14-billion-euro sovereign wealth is currently frozen in Brussels-based bank Euroclear.
