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LIBYA-CONFLICT-JUSTICE-FRANCE
Last Kadhafi PM freed in Libya for ‘health reasons’
TRIPOLI, July 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, Libya’s last
prime minister under ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi, has been released from
jail for health reasons four years after being sentenced to death, Tripoli’s
justice ministry said Saturday.
Mahmoudi, in his 70s, was premier when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011
toppled and killed Kadhafi.
He was handed the death sentence in July 2014 along with eight other
Kadhafi-era officials including the leader’s son Seif al-Islam, over their
alleged role in a bloody crackdown on protesters.
The justice ministry said Mahmoudi was released “for health reasons” at the
recommendation of a medical commission “so that he could be treated at
specialised medical centres”.
It gave no further details on the nature of his illness or when he was
liberated.
Mahmoudi was arrested in September 2011 as he tried to flee across the
border to Tunisia, and was extradited to Libya the following year.
During his detention in Tunisia, he claimed that Libya had financed the
2007 election campaign of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, according
to his lawyers.
The French ex-president vehemently denied the allegations, initially made
by Seif al-Islam.
But Sarkozy was charged in March 2018 over accusations he accepted millions
of euros from Kadhafi.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1718 hrs