The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU), headed by Abdelhamid Dbaiba is asking Washington to help it recover tens of billions of dollars in state assets that it alleges were stolen by Libya’s late leader Moammar Gaddafi and his associaties stashed around the world, Wall Street Journal reported.
Gaddafi ruled the oil-rich country for 42 years before he was ousted and killed and Libyan officials say family members and others close to him looted government coffers of cash, gold, and rare antiquities. A 2016 study by Berlin-based Transparency International estimates as much as $120 billion was taken.
A United Nations (UN) agency helped Libya to trace and identify roughly $54 billion in assets. This included deposits in banks, gold, diamonds, aircraft, and ships, some of which are in the US and other Western countries.
This month, Mohamed Ramadan Mensli, the Libyan official tasked with tracing and recovering stolen Libyan assets, said he met with US officials in Washington. “We asked for their support,” he said. He declined to discuss the specifics of his requests.
A Spokesperson for the State Department said the US supported efforts to return assets that belong to the Libyan people while cautioning the country was still in the midst of a political transition.
“We also believe it is necessary to ensure that the processes include strong oversight and transparency measures to prevent any further diversions of the Libyan people’s assets,” he said.
The Tripoli-based Libyan Asset Recovery and Management Office, known as LARMO, was established in 2017 with the help of the UN and is seen as the best hope for recovering anything. Mensli said it operates as a government entity independent from political factions.
He also acknowledged that some governments have reservations about whether the Libyan government is capable of managing large sums of money.
To address their concerns, he said any recovered funds would be kept in a secure location overseas, before being repatriated in batches to fund specific projects, such as the construction of schools and hospitals.
Mensli took charge of LARMO in 2021 after infighting in the recovery office derailed an advanced effort at the time to recover some assets in the US.
During his trip to Washington this week, the Libyan official met members of the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
(FBI), the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and the World Bank to get their assistance in recovering the funds, LARMO said Thursday.
Besides asking for help in recovering some of the looted assets, Mensli said he also spoke to American officials about eight C-130 cargo aircraft that have been in the US for decades. They were paid for by the Gaddafi regime but never delivered to Libya after the US government put a hold on military sales to Libya as relations between the two countries deteriorated.
The US Defence Department referred a request for comment to the US Air Force, which did not immediately respond.
Libya’s record for recovering state assets is thin. A $12 million property once owned by Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, was recovered in London in 2012, a rare success in the hunt for the late Libyan’s vast real-estate assets.
Last year, a court also ordered Malta’s Bank of Valletta to return to Libya about 95 million euros, roughly $100 million, deposited by another one of Gaddafi’s sons, Mutassim-Billah.
