Johannesburg – Aisha Gaddafi, the only daughter of the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has had sanctions against her lifted by Europe’s second-highest court, which ruled they were no longer justified.
In 2011 Aisha was included on a European Union (EU) list of people subjected to sanctions that included a travel ban and a freeze on their financial assets after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) backed-rebels overthrew her father during the Libyan revolution.
In 2014, the EU amended its sanctions, but kept her on the list and rejected her requests to be removed, the BBC reported on Tuesday. She subsequently sued them, postulating there was no reason for the sanctions to remain in place following the fall of her father’s regime and his death.
Oman granted asylum to some members of Gaddafi's family including Aisha and her brother Hannibal, in 2013. Two other brothers, Seif Al Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi’s heir apparent, and Saadi Gaddafi, a former football player, businessman and playboy, are awaiting trial in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Seif, a London School of Economics graduate is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), on charges of crimes against humanity but authorities in Tripoli insist he face trial in Libya.
Saadi, Gaddafi’s third son, was considered to be more interested in hedonistic pleasures than pursuing power and is not wanted by the ICC. In 2014 he was extradited from Niger, where he had sought asylum.
Fourth son Mutassim, a former National Security Adviser, was killed by Libyan rebels on the same day his father was dragged from a sewer drain and killed.
Meanwhile, violent crime continues to wrack the North African country. A policeman was killed and three of his colleagues injured, one of them seriously, during a Tripoli bank robbery on Tuesday.
The police were gunned down outside the Suq Al Thalatha branch of the National Commercial Bank in Tripoli’s Fallah district, the Libya Herald reported.
During the armed robbery, the bank managers and three of the bank guards were also kidnapped. Following the brazen attack the bank failed to provide details of how much money had been stolen, nor did it comment on the kidnappings or the fate of the manager and guards.
Furthermore, the identities of the gunmen remain unclear. However, the same gang is later believed to have shot up a police vehicle outside the police station on the Airport Road.