Libya’s government and the UN expressed concern Monday over an intimidation that has sh ut the court where the son of slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi is appealing his rejected presidential bid.
The elections on December 24 come as Libya seeks to turn the page on a decade of violence since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed Kadhafi in 2011.
Last Wednesday, Libya’s electoral commission an-nounced the rejection of the candidacy of his son Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, who is wanted by the Interna-tional Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
Unsuccessful applicants were given 48 hours to appeal in court.
But on Thursday morning, a “group of outlaws” launched an “odious” attack on the court in the southern city of Sebha, forcing it to shut hours be-fore Seif al-Islam had been due to appeal, the gov-ernment in Tripoli said.
Similar incidents have been reported since, with footage broadcast on local media showing gunmen — presented as belonging to the eastern-based strongman and presidential candidate Khalifa Haftar — blocking access to the court.
The Libyan government said in a statement late Monday that it was “following with great concern the tensions around the court in Sebha, which threaten the legitimacy of the judicial institution”.
“Threatening the lives of judges or trying to influ-ence their work risks plunging Sebha back into civil war,” it added.
The United Nations Libya mission UNSMIL also said in a statement that it was “following with great concern the continued closure of Sebha Court of Appeal” where it said “judges were physically pre-vented from conducting their legally mandated du-ties, directly impeding the electoral process”.—APP
