Libya seeks court injunction to halt handover of embassy properties

Libyan officials are to seek a court injunction today to prevent the Foreign Office from handing over control of the country’s London embassy properties and funds frozen in UK accounts to rebel leaders.

Mr Hague reversed the government position that Britain recognises countries not government's when he expelling Col Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists and recognised the NTC as representatives of the Libyan state Photo: PA

Khaled Kaim, the Libyan deputy foreign minister, said that Foreign Secretary William Hague's decision to transfer the embassies to representatives of the opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) was a violation of the Vienna Conventions.

 

Lawyers representing Tripoli were last night preparing to go to the courts for a judicial review preventing the NTC’s envoys from assuming control of the state’s property. The Libyan Embassy in London is due to reopen its doors today under control of the NTC.

“We intend to go to the UK courts on Tuesday to establish that the Vienna Conventions doesn’t give them a right to hand over those premises to [a body] that is not a governing authority,” he said. “What would the British government do if we just granted the IRA access to the British Embassy in Tripoli.”

The regime has already scored one success by reversing the expulsion of its delegate to the International Maritime Organisation, a UN body based in London. The UN ruled that Britain, as the host nation had no right to throw out a diplomat accredited to its subsidiary. Foreign Office officials said the courts would hear a dispute between the competing Libyan sides.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said it stood by its decision to recognise the NTC. “We are not a party to the proceedings,” he said.

Security experts also gave a sceptical response yesterday to a British-backed blueprint produced by the NTC for governing Libya should Col Gaddafi’s regime be overthrown. The 70-page plan prepared by NTC with a small team of British consultants, concluded that regime change was overwhelmingly dependent on Col Gaddafi’s regime collapsing from within. In that event, the rebels plan to establish a 10,000-15,000 strong “Tripoli task force” to secure the capital. The NTC assumes that 5,000 policemen can be recruited to serve with the interim government.
However the document left analysts with a host of concerns. “It’s one thing to put things down on paper but it’s another to implement them,” said David Hartwell, an analyst at IHS Global Analysis.
Separately the leader of NTC yesterday sacked top officials in a bid to halt infighting after the murder of the rebels top military commander by a faction of the movement.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the chairman of the NTC dismissed several senior officials, including the rebels’ finance, defence and information ministers.