The assassination of the Chief of Staff, Major General Abdul Fatah Younis Al-Obeidi, which took place about a month before the liberation of the Libyan capital, still raises questions and suspicions, even amongst some of the revolution’s icons.
The last Minister of Interior under Gaddafi’s regime and one of the first military commanders to join the revolution, Al-Obeidi’s assassination on July 28, 2011, was a great shock, as he was expected to establish a national army that could assume the responsibilities of security and defense during and after the revolution.
The assassination of the Chief of Staff, Major General Abdul Fatah Younis Al-Obeidi, which took place about a month before the liberation of the Libyan capital, still raises questions and suspicions, even amongst some of the revolution’s icons.
The last Minister of Interior under Gaddafi’s regime and one of the first military commanders to join the revolution, Al-Obeidi’s assassination on July 28, 2011, was a great shock, as he was expected to establish a national army that could assume the responsibilities of security and defense during and after the revolution.
The circumstances of the assassination were obscure and the case is still being deliberated by the judiciary, where an indictment was issued, which included 17 names.
Al-Obeidi’s three sons are blaming the consecutive government for not having paid sufficient attention to the matter.
Their cousin, Muhammad Hamed, is the official spokesperson for the case:
Mr. Hamed, what have investigations revealed so far?
They have reached a dead end because the National Transitional Council (NTC), which was in power at the time of the crime, obfuscated the case intentionally and made it confidential. Even the members of the military court and prosecutors complained and expressed their discontent about the lack of cooperation in completing investigations.
It is worth noting that the investigations in the civil prosecution were going well; however, NTC referred the case to the military prosecution in a clear attempt to dilute and obstruct it. And the same happened with the criminal investigations; whenever progress was made, NTC obstructed the issue in one way or another.
After the NTC left power and handed the reins of government to the General National Conference (GNC), there have been some changes; we’ve been promised by some of the GNC members, chief among them Dr. Mohamed el-Magariaf, president of the GNC, that this case is a priority for them and will be presented as a state and national case once the government has been formed.
There have been conflicting accounts about the way Al-Obeidi was summoned from the front lines and then killed. What is your version of the story?
Al-Obeidi was summoned from the front lines to stand before an investigation committee. The way he was summoned was demagogic: NTC revolutionary forces – including the Abu Ubaidah Ibn al Jarrah Brigade that killed him – headed by a man called Mustafa Rubea, came and took him to the operation room in Ajdabiya in the evening.
Before Al-Obeidi went with them, he made some calls to make sure of the issue; he called the deputy head of the executive office, Fawzi Al-Issawi, who confirmed it.
Al-Obeidi was brought to Qaryounis camp in Benghazi, then transferred to the Military Police camp, which is the base of Abu Ubaidah bin al Jarrah Brigade where he was killed with his two comrades after the soldiers received a phone call ordering them to do so. We don’t know who made that call.
Why was he arrested?
The arrest warrant, which was made by Councilor Mustafa Abdul Jalil, was based on a number of reports submitted to him by security bodies during the reign of the executive office. Amongst the charges is an alleged meeting between Al-Obeidi and Abdulrahman Seid, one of Gaddafi’s men.
Fortunately, some patriots, who were close to NTC, were aware of the details of this meeting, which was commissioned by Abdul Jalil himself who sent Al-Obeidi to Rome to hold it.
Al-Obeidi was also charged with causing a shortage of ammunitions on the eastern front. But we have correspondences proving that the councilor, the Minister of Defense and his undersecretary were responsible for distributing ammunitions, not Al-Obeidi.
The truth is that Al-Obeidi had been assassinated way before that when he had been stripped of his powers by the NTC president, and his role was confined to a moral aspect only. That’s why he decided to resign after liberating Brega; however, he didn’t disclose his intentions in public so as not to shake the morale of the rebels who trusted him.
Do you believe that the assassination was a conspiracy or an act of vengeance committed by Islamist groups, which had been hit by Gaddafi’s regime in eastern Libya in 1996?
In my view, it’s a conspiracy in every sense. As for the incidents you’ve mentioned, what people don’t know is that Al-Obeidi was detained for a month and a half, put under house arrest for a whole year, and demoted from colonel to lieutenant colonel for refusing to assault civilians at that time; his deputy took over the operations.
Who are the main suspects and what procedures have been taken against them?
Our main suspect is Councilor Mustafa Abdul Jalil. In the beginning, Abdul Jalil wasn’t accused, but then he became a suspect through the confessions of the other suspects, such as Dr. Ali al-Issawi – former member of the executive office – and Sheikh Salim al-Shaikhi – former Minister of Endowments – who submitted two memos to Al-Obeidi’s family, containing their accounts of the events that led to his assassination. They both accused Councilor Abdul Jalil with arranging the operation; al-Issawi’s memo said it was Abdul Jalil who had ordered to arrest Al-Obeidi and hand him to the groups that killed him.
Furthermore, the last suspect investigated in teh course of the military prosecution confessed that Abdul Jalil had ordered to kill Al-Obeidi. Up to the moment, Abdul Jalil hasn’t commented on these accusations.
The administrative investigation, which took place in the public prosecutor’s office, charges Abdul Jalil and Ali al-Issawi with involvement in the operation, and charges Salim al-Shaikhi, Jalal al-Digheily – Minister of Defense – Muhammad al-Alaki – Minister of Justice – and Ahmad Hussein al-Darrat, Minister of Interior, with negligence.
Why hasn’t Mahmoud Jibril, head of the executive office, been at least accused of negligence?
Dr. Mahmoud Jibril said in some of his meetings that he was willing to stand before any judicial authority concerning this case and now we are about to accuse anyone who was in an official position then, whether in the executive office or NTC.
Why, in your opinion, has the judiciary taken so long time to decide about this case?
All lawyers and legal personnel we have talked to believe that NTC might deactivate the judiciary because of Al-Obeidi’s case.
What about the accusations of assassinating Councilor Juma Jazawi, which have been made against you by his son?
Actually, we haven’t been directly accused by them; rather, we have heard some rumors about that. Councilor Jazawi, may God have mercy on his soul, is still one of the people accused of Al-Obeidi’s assassination, but we hoped that retribution would only be made through the judiciary.
We believe that the hidden hands that were behind the killing of Al-Obeidi are the same that killed Jazawi. A short period before his death, Jazawi said to us, Al-Obeidi’s family, that he had many documents incriminating NTC. Accordingly, we arranged a press interview with him on a TV channel, but it wasn’t possible due to his injury after an earlier attempt to kill him.
We wish he was with us today to uncover the truth, as he intended to testify after coming from Jordan, but the hand of treachery was faster.
The interval between Al-Obeidi’s death and Jazawi’s was pretty long; wasn’t it enough for the latter to make his mind and speak all he knew?
Actually he only communicated with us ten days before his death, and he told us that the documents would be in safe hands even if anything happened to him. I personally believe that he decided to communicate with us after the first murder attempt.
What is your next course of action, or have you settled for the GNC’s promises?
We have submitted our demands to GNC are to put the defendants under house arrest and travel ban, on top of them Councilor Mustafa Abdul Jalil, until the case is decided.
Indeed, this case would either prove the strength and integrity of the Libyan judiciary, if it was able to show the truth and execute the sentences against the convicted regardless of their capacities, or it would never have a stable ground in this country.
