EXCLUSIVE | Former Libyan minister says 'Gaddafi has his ministers hostage'
Omar Fathi Bin Shatwan
Libya’s former trade and energy minister Omar Fathi Bin Shatwan who has managed to escape to Malta from Misurata, has had to have his security beefed up, following the revelation by a local blogger of his whereabouts.
Shatwan, 59 fled to Malta together with his family last Friday on board the Libyan-flagged trawler ‘Alintishar’ that was operating an aid supply service to Misurata hospital.
He was assisted by the Maltese government and the British High Commission, since his elder son holds a British passport.
Speaking to MaltaToday, Shatwan was thankful to the Maltese government for granting humanitarian protection to him and his family, and stressed that he always held Malta “close to his heart.”
Shatwan, who no longer holds any governmental positions in Libya since 2006, was also the head on the Malta-Libya joint committee for eight years.
Speaking about the situation in Libya, Shatwan said that Gaddafi is holding all his ministers “hostage” at the Aziziya compound.
“He has taken all their passports, and he is allowing travel only to those who really need to, on condition that they leave their families behind. He is blackmailing them,” Shatwan said.
The former Libyan minister said that “given the chance, they would all defect, and this is a fact!”
“If Mousa Kousa defected – who was considered to be the closest to Ghaddafi – then logic tells you that given the opportunity, they will all leave.”
“Even the deputy foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi who came to Malta last Monday as an envoy would have defected if he was given a chance, but obviously, his family is still in Libya...” Shatwan said.
Asked about Col. Gaddafi’s future, Omar Fathi Bin Shatwan said that the fact that Gaddafi has ordered his troops to shoot and kill his own people, then “there is no way that he can ever be accepted by the Libyan people to continue ruling.”
“Neither his sons or any other member of his family can ever aspire to rule over Libya anymore,” Shatwan said.
He was highly critical of NATO for 2leaving the Libyan people to die.”
“It was good when military action was being led by the US, UK and France, but since NATO took over it is a mess, and there is no real will to liberate Libya from the hardships Gaddafi troops are putting the Libyan people in.”
“NATO is slow, inefficient and practically giving Gaddafi an incedible advantage,” he said, adding that the situation in Misurata is a clear example of the confusion NATO is in.
“I came from Misurata, a city that has been under siege for 48 days, people are being killed everyday, they have been surrounded by the loyalist troops and they are attacking all the time.
“They have destroyed the city, cut off all water and electricity supplies. There is no food or medicines, there is nothing but fear and dead bodies all over the place,” he said.
