The administration of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was running a covert programme to conceal weapons in Libyan embassies across the globe, a senior official in the new government said on Mar 8. The weapons included handguns, grenades and bomb-making materials and were shipped using the diplomatic bag. They may have been intended for use in assassinations on Libyan dissidents abroad, or for operations against the embassies’ host countries. The scale of the scheme is emerging for the first time now as the leadership installed in last year’s rebellion against Qaddafi takes over control of embassies and finds the arms, said Mohammed Abdul Aziz, Libya’s deputy foreign minister.
Qaddafi’s officials shipped weapons to “many countries. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe. So it’s not only in two or three countries,” Abdul Aziz was reported as saying in an interview. “Nobody knows what was the plan. Was it to address certain problems as far as the host country is concerned? Was it going to be used against Libyan nationals? Nobody knows,” he said. “Honestly, everything is possible with the previous regime.”
Asked if the weapons were concealed in Libyan embassies as part of a concerted operation conceived inside Qaddafi’s administration, Abdul Aziz said: “I have no single doubt in my mind. No single doubt.” During his 42 years in power, Qaddafi was frequently accused of exporting violence.