Mohammed Elbarat told the Daily News that personal transactions were done by Gaddafi and his family under the auspices of the Libyan government. He said there were plans to recover the properties “looted” by Gaddafi.
The envoy, who was today declared persona non grata by the Mugabe government and given five days to get out of the country, said the deposed leader’s son Saadi’s visit to Zimbabwe last year was premised on a similar venture and even duped President Robert Mugabe’s government into believing that they were doing state business.
According to the Daily News: “Gaddafi came here in 2002 and signed many business deals. What he did was that he took away all the documents of agreements back to Libya, and also changed embassy staff that handled the bilateral agreements.
The transactions were done under Ambassador Mahomend Aziz, who knew all the transactions were all new to the embassy staff here. We only know that he came here, but do not know what he signed for,” said Elbarat.
He said the same illicit deals happened last year when Saadi Gaddafi visited the country privately. He was paraded by the Zimbabwean government as an investor who had come to invest in agriculture, mining and tourism and paid a courtesy call on Mugabe. He did the same in several other African countries.
Elbarat told the Daily News that on all the occasions all the documents were taken away, leaving no record at embassies in those countries. “We know nothing of these deals because they were benefiting his family,” Elbarat said.
He implored the Zimbabwean government to cancel the deals entered into by Gaddafi and his family.
“We can only hope that the government of Zimbabwe will realise that these deals did not benefit Libyan people but Gaddafi and his family and the people involved in these deals must just cancel them and start new deals with the new administration in Libya,’’ said Elbarat.
His plea for the NTC running Libya to open a new chapter with the Zimbabwe government has been flatly rejected.
AUnited Nations resolution has frozen all the bank accounts and assets held globally by Gaddafi and his family.
Post published in: News