NYT: Libya Defector Cooperating Even Without Immunity
BREGA, Libya — As rebel forces in Libya began a cautious regrouping after a panicked retreat, Britain on Thursday offered new details about the defection of Libya’s foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, insisting that there had been no deal to lure him in return for immunity from prosecution.
The capital of Tripoli was alive with rumored defections on Thursday, with the prime minister, speaker of Parliament and oil minister, among other top figures, said at various times to be quitting the country. None of those reports could be verified.
Other than Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sons, the only other official as close to the Libyan leader as Mr. Koussa is Adbdullah Senussi, his brother-in-law and a top security adviser. Like the Qaddafi family, his whereabouts were unknown Thursday, but there were no credible reports that he had fled.
Mr. Koussa was a confidant of Colonel Qaddafi and was considered a pillar of the Qaddafi government since the early days of the 1969 revolution. He has been listed by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court among those who “commanded and had control” over Libyan security forces suspected of “crimes against humanity.”
Mr. Koussa flew into a noncommercial British airfield at Farnborough southwest of London aboard an executive jet on Wednesday and, according to a statement released by the British authorities, said that he was resigning his post.
In a speech in London on Thursday, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Mr. Koussa, a former intelligence chief in the Libyan regime, had fled to London “of his own free will.”
“Moussa Koussa is not being offered any immunity from British or international justice,” Mr. Hague said. “He is voluntarily talking to British officials, including members of the British Embassy in Tripoli now based in London, and our ambassador, Richard Northern.”
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said on March 3 that he would investigate “alleged crimes against humanity committed in Libya since 15 February, as peaceful demonstrators were attacked by security forces.” He placed Mr. Koussa second after Colonel Qaddafi on a list of “some individuals with formal or de facto authority, who commanded and had control over the forces that allegedly committed the crimes.”
In Washington, Obama administration officials reacted with glee, embracing the defection as a sign of wavering support for Colonel Qaddafi.
Read full article at The New York Times.
