Ex-deputy PM named suspect in Libyan general's killing

Ex-deputy PM named suspect in Libyan general's killing Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Monday a former NTC deputy prime minister was suspected of involvement in the killing of one of the rebel movement’s most senior military commanders as Libyan religious leaders urged authorities to disarm former rebels and form a national army.
General Abdel Fatah Younis was killed by his own side in July, an incident that caused deep rifts inside the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule. The naming of the suspects risks reviving those divisions.
At a news conference broadcast on Libyan television, NTC chief military prosecutor Yussef Al-Aseifr named Ali Al-Essawi as chief suspect. Essawi served as the NTC’s interim deputy prime minister until he stepped down earlier this year.
Libya's General Prosecutor Walid Swany also said in a news conference held in Benghazi on Monday that the investigations concluded there were six are accused of Younis and his company including Colonel Mohamed Khamis and Lieutenant Colonel Naser Mazkour.
The General Prosecutor, in the same news conference attended by the head of the National Transitional Council in Libya and the Deputy General Prosecutor Ahmed El Fakhery, also stressed that Yahia Abdel Salam, Mohamed Bin Issa, Ahmed Mansour al Johani, Salim Mohamed El Ebaidy, and Ali Abdel Kader Zoubi in addition to someone called Ibrahim, who hasn’t been identified till now, were the main suspects in Younis’s murder.
Six former leaders and chief officers in Libya were also accused of taking part murdering the former chief of staff according to Swany.
Deputy chairman of the Executive Office of the NTC, Dr. Ali Abdelaziz Saad Al-Essawi, the head of the investigation committee assigned to interrogate Younis in addition to the consultant Goma Hassan Al Gazouy Al Ebaidy as well as field commanders Ahmed Salim Bokhtala, Farag Milad, Hassan El Bakoush, and Mohamed Farag bin Hamid were all included in the formal accusation of the general and his company.     
“There are seven people suspected of involvement in Abdel Fatah Younis’s killing. Three have been arrested and security forces are looking for the others,” said Aseifr, who was standing alongside NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Reuters reported.
Essawi denied involvement in a phone call to the local Libya Awalen television station. “I never signed any decision relating to Abdel Fatah Younis,” he said. “Everybody in Libya wants the truth.”
Before he was made deputy prime minister, Essawi had acted as the NTC’s de facto foreign minister and toured foreign capitals rallying support for the rebellion before Gaddafi was forced from power in August.
Younis was for years part of Gaddafi’s inner circle. He defected at the start of the uprising against Gaddafi’s rule in February and became the military chief of the rebellion.
The circumstances of his killing remain murky, but it is known that he was killed after NTC leaders summoned him back from the front line to Benghazi, the eastern city where at the time the council had its headquarters.
Meanwhile, dozens of Libyan religious leaders on Monday urged authorities to disarm former rebels and form a national army, backing the transitional government’s struggle to exert control over the militias that overthrew Gaddafi.
The clerics’ statement reflected concern over the militias’ refusal to submit to the central authority. Dozens of militias have held on to arsenals of heavy weapons and sometimes clash among themselves.
“We advise speeding up the process of establishing a national army and the collection of arms,” said a statement from the 250 imams and other clerics gathered for a conference in Tripoli, the first of its kind after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. It was organized by Libya’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs.
The clerics expressed fears that tribal and regional tensions could lead to a deterioration of security. “We need to focus especially on reconciliation and ... on building the new state of Libya,” said Salim Jabar, an imam from the eastern city of Benghazi.
Participants complained about young men who they said carried weapons on the street and fired into the air for fun, sometimes killing people.
Libya’s NTC says it is working on forging a national army, integrating some of the militias and disarming the rest. Officials acknowledge that process could take months, and they said they could not force the militias to go along.
An earlier report by the UN highlighted one of the consequences of lack of militia accountability, stating that former Libyan revolutionaries still hold about 7,000 prisoners from the civil war, some of whom were subjected to torture and ill treatment.
The report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, made public before a Security Council briefing, said that many of the inmates have no access to due process in the absence of a functioning police and judiciary.
“The most important point is that all friends and supporters of new Libya need to come together in support of the authority of the new Libyan government and to channel all of our support and assistance consistent with their needs and desires,” US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said, according to an Al Arabiya correspondent.
The 250 clerics also demanded that the country’s planned constitution be based on Shariah (Islamic law), and that anything that violates Islam - including the consumption of alcohol - be declared illegal.
Most political forces in this conservative and overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country expect that religion will guide the future shape of the state, although it is still unclear how the precepts of Islamic law will be implemented.
The clerics also said they were concerned with what they said were “rumors” circulating in Libya’s newly freed press. One advocated a law that would allow journalists to be charged with murder for publishing false information that incites tribal or other tensions.
After the conference, female reporters who tried to interview a leading cleric were told they could not do so, because he did not speak to women.
 In other news, the whereabouts of Gaddafi's former spy chief Abdullah Al-Senussi is still unknow despte earlier claims that he was captured a little after Gaddafi's son Seif Al-Islam was found.
Conspiracy chief Senussi remained at the now-deceased dictator's side for more than 42 years and is regarded as the third most-wanted figure by the International Criminal Court. The former Spy Chief is believed to be the main perpetrator of the massacre of Abu Selim Prison in June 1996 when almost 1200 prisoners killed.
A diplomatic correspondence issued by Wikileaks unveiled that Senoussi was Gaddafi's "shadow" and the engineer of all his policies and personal arrangements including his medication schedule. The telegraph sent from the US Embassy in Tripoli to the Department of State describes Abd Allah as a terrifying person by nature.  
There are several stories regardin Senussi as he was reported to be murdered during an attack by NTC fighters to Al Fadil Brigade in Benghazi. Others said that he was detained with Colonel Gaddafi's son Motasem Gaddafi on the February 20 this year, but the claim was later denied by Niger's president who said Senussi was seen in Niger. Shortly after, news was circulated about his intention to surrender to the Interational Criminal Court with Seif Al-Islam.
Libyan independent journalist and writer Asaad Abu Quela said that there were many contradiciting views, with some sources saying he was arrested, while others said that he died on the border with Niger and a third that he fled Libya.       
Senussi is believed to be suffering from cancer. He was also described as the eyes and ears of Gaddafi and the iron hand that helped the dictator gain control over the Libyans over the last four decades.