Yearbook 1999
Libya. Two former Libyan agents, Abd al-Basit al-Magrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fahima, were extradited to the Netherlands on April 5 to stand trial for the blast attack on a US passenger plane over the Scottish village of Lockerbie in 1988, when 270 people were killed. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Libya. The United States and the United Kingdom had for eight years tried to obtain the extradition with the help of mediators from Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UN. During the final negotiations, Libya demanded that the suspects, if convicted, be placed in Libyan prison, while the United Kingdom and the United States demanded that the sentence be served in a western country. It was resolved with a compromise: The convicted are to be placed in British prison with UN staff guards. The trial, to be held under Scottish law in the Netherlands, began formally on April 6.
- Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of LBY which stands for Libya and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.
As soon as the suspects had been extradited, the UN Security Council voted to suspend the sanctions which, since 1992-1993, include the following: prohibited the export of weapons and oil drilling equipment to Libya and air traffic to and from the country. However, the sanctions were not permanently lifted, as the United States demanded that Libya, among other things, would waive all forms of terrorism, pay damages to the victims’ victims, and cooperate with the investigation and those responsible for the trial in the Netherlands. In July, Britain and Libya fully restored their diplomatic relations after Libya agreed to cooperate with the investigation into the murder of a female police officer outside Libya’s embassy in London and to pay damages to her relatives.
A French court sentenced six Libyan agents in March in their absence for blowing up a French passenger plane in the air in 1989. All 171 people on board were killed when the plane exploded during a flight from Brazzaville to Paris. French authorities issued international arrest warrants for the six convicted, among them a brother-in-law of Libyan leader Muammar al-Khadaffi. In July, Libya paid damages of 200 million francs, which the court awarded to the relatives of the dead.
On September 16, the UN recognized the rebel forces as the country’s representation. After a 1-month siege of Khaddafi’s birthplace Sirte, this was finally captured by the rebel forces on October 20. Ghaddafi and the last remnants of his forces attempted to flee the city in a car column attacked by French fighter jets. Ghaddafi and his son were subsequently captured and executed by the rebel forces. The execution was sharply criticized by the international human rights organizations, while the leaders of the Western world applauded it. Since September 11, 2011, the Western world has moved swiftly away from the code that has governed war for 100 years: the Geneva Conventions.
After the execution, Ghadaffi’s body was driven to Misrata, where it was exhibited in the cold store of a butcher shop. NATO’s conquest of Libya was complete. It cost 50,000 Libyans life and has led to ethnic cleansing, but France and Britain regained access to Libya’s oil. The country’s new clan rulers already declared in July that the governing will in future be Islamic, based on Sharia law.
In November, Zintan captured the militia of Ghadaffi’s second son, Saif al-Islam, in the southern part of the country. He was flown to Zintan. The Benghazi militia demanded him subsequently extradited, which Zintan bluntly rejected.
In December, fighting over control of the airport in Tripoli came. The reason was that new banknotes were flown in from Germany, and the militia controlling the airport could charge a considerable tariff for the expensive shipment. The Zintan militia had control of the airport and rejected the rival militants’ attacks. Throughout December, fighting continued in several places in Tripoli, stressing that the country is no longer a functioning cohesive state.
In January 2012, Ghadaffi loyalists captured the desert city of Bani Walid 200 km south of Tripoli and subsequently attacked several other cities in the southern part of the country. In Benghazi, hundreds of protesters attacked the NTC headquarters in frustration over lack of reforms and the general disintegration of the country. Amnesty International released a report criticizing the growing number of detainees and the widespread use of torture against regime opponents. MSF withdrew from Misrata in protest of the widespread use of torture in the city. The Danish doctor Niels Søndergaard had been in town to work with the victims in November-January, but already in December Søndergaard and MSF found out that the militias were using them as part of their torture strategy. Prisoners were subjected to torture; when they succumbed they were sent to the doctors’ clinic; and from there back to torture again.
In March 2012, Amnesty International criticized NATO for its targeted bombing of the civilian population. names of 55 civilian Libyan victims. Amnesty called on NATO to investigate the bombings to get to the bottom of how civilians could be attacked. It was rejected by NATO.
At the end of March, the Council of Europe presented a report imposing on NATO responsibility for the death of 63 boat refugees in the Mediterranean in March 2011. NATO maintained, among other things. The UN weapons blockade of Libya and therefore had full control of shipping traffic offshore. However, the alliance did nothing to save the refugees.
Libya – Tripoli
Tripoli
Triʹpoli, Arabic Ṭarābulus al-Gharb, Greek Tripolis, capital of Libya; 1. 1 million residents (2010). Tripoli is located on the Gulf of Lilla Syrten in the Mediterranean and has an important port, oil refinery, textile, food and furniture industry as well as a university (founded in 1973). The city has an international airport.
The city, known in ancient times as the Oea, was originally a Phoenician trading colony. Oea came to obey Carthage but was controlled from 146 BC of the Romans, during which it became a central city in the province of Tripolitana. About 450 AD the city was taken over by the vandals and 534 by Östrom, who lost Tripoli to the Arabs in the mid-600s. In 1146–58 Tripoli was ruled by the Normans in Sicily, 1510–51 by the Spaniards, after which the city recognized the supremacy of the Ottoman Empire. Tripoli obeyed Italy from 1911, fell to the British in 1943 and since 1951 has been the capital of independent Libya.
