Exile deaths blamed on Gadaffi assassins

Press, 12 May 1980, Page 1

Exile deaths blamed on Gadaffi assassins

NZPA-Reuter Bom The -West .German and Italian police are investigating the possibility that a systematic execution campaign is being carried out against exiled enemies of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi.

The Bonn police were interrogating a young" Libyan who shot dead a former official of the Libyan Embassy in a busy pedestrian underpass on Saturday before being seized by passers-by. In Rome, a wealthy Lib-

yan businessman was shot dead in a crowded bar near the railway station on Saturday, the third killing of a prominent Libyan in the city this year. The killers, described by witnesses as Arabic-look-ing, escaped. Mr Mohamed Musharati, a member of the Libyan People’s Committee, said in Rome last week, “The governments who protect these thieves a,nd criminals run the risk of being their accomplices.” He repeated threats made by other senior Lib-

yan officials to eliminate enemies of the Libyan revolution unless they returned home by June 10. Two Libyans have also been killed in London and Britain has warned the Libyan Government that it will not tolerate terrorism. It is believed tnat Scotland Yard suspects two gunmen are hiding in the Libyan diplomatic mission. The Foreign Secretary (Lord Carrington) has been urged by a Conservative member of Parliament to order the immediate expulsion or arrest of anyone in the mis-

sion suspected of being involved in the killings. . The Bonn police said that the young Libyan arrested there had told them he had flown from Tripoli to Cologne at. the end of April to. demand repayment from his victim of a debt of more than DMIOO,OOO (about $60,000) and had shot him because the demand had gone unanswered. The police said the possibility of a political motive was open and that they were investigating possible links with the Rome and London killings. After the killing of a

Libyan businessman in Rome on April 19 the press attache at the Libyan diplomatic mission there said that a “traitors’ list” had been sent out from Rome with the names of foreign-based opponents of Colonel Gadaffi’s Government. No officials at the “people’s bureau” in Rome were available yesterday to say whether the latest victim there was on that list. (Libya converted its diplomatic . missions into “people’s bureaus” last September). Four Libyan officials accir ’ by the United States

State Department pt intimidating Libyan students in the United States were to leave for home yesterday after their Government had agreed to recall them.

The four had refused to heed an expulsion order and had remained inside the Libyan mission in Washington to avoid the police while United States officials had threatened to remove them from the country by force. Colonel Gadaffi was reported by the Libyan news agency Jana on Thursday to have threatened to halt oil supplies to the United

States over the incident, but he was later quoted as saying that he wanted good relations with the United States.

Jana also quoted Colonel Gadaffi as saying Libya would halt oil supplies to Britain, and would reclaim from Britain, West Germany, and Italy thousands of millions of dollars in ■ compensation to repa’ damage to Libya caused during the North African campaigns of World War 11. If Libya could not receive damages through negotiations it would seize what would, compensate it by force.