Libya Launches Campaign in Search of Gaddafi’s Frozen Assets

Late Libyan leader Moammar al-Gaddafi. (Reuters)
Late Libyan leader Moammar al-Gaddafi. (Reuters)
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Libya Launches Campaign in Search of Gaddafi’s Frozen Assets

Late Libyan leader Moammar al-Gaddafi. (Reuters)
Late Libyan leader Moammar al-Gaddafi. (Reuters)

Libyan diplomats, politicians and academics called on Thursday the United Nations Security Council to act to save Libyan assets that have been frozen in foreign accounts since the toppling of the regime of ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.

The move was an attempt to ease concerns that the interests on these assets were being used to fund militias in Libya.

More than 100 Libyan figures, including former Ambassador to the UN Ibrahim al-Dabbashi, signed a document, urging the UN to assume its responsibilities and safeguard the funds.

They said that they were following with concern official statements on the disappearance of several billions of interests on frozen assets in Belgian banks over the past five years.

They said they were committed to Security Council resolutions on preserving those interests, calling on the concerned sanctions committee to take the necessary measures in this regard.

News of the abuse of the interests emerged in November when Libyan officials demanded that Belgian authorities reveal the fate of interests and dividends on accounts frozen under UN sanctions in 2011 amid reports that Brussels had financed Libyan militias from these funds.

Belgian media said at the time that up to 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) could have been disbursed to people controlling Libyan accounts, including militia groups in the country accused of human rights abuses.

The development sparked uproar in Libya.

MP Ali al-Saeedi al-Qayedi told Asharq Al-Awsat that this issue will be discussed at parliament. He revealed that he will demand the formation of an investigation committee to tackle the case.

He added that the funds were used to finance the extremist “Fajr Libya” group that first emerged in July 2014.

Belgium’s Le Vif weekly revealed that Belgian authorities have opened an investigation into the disappearance of up to 10 billion euros in interests on frozen Libyan assets that belonged to Gaddafi. The majority of the funds were deposited in the Euroclear Bank and were frozen between 2012 and 2017.

MP Mohammed Amer al-Abani indirectly blamed the Government of National Accord for the loss of the funds, saying it was attributed to “the rampant corruption in government institutions given that it was imposed by the Security Council.”

The best way to preserve the assets is to hold elections and dissolving councils, supporting the armed forces and disbanding and disarming militias, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.



Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

 Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

 Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)

Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the 14-year civil war on Sunday gathered in the city of Daraa and called on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.

The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared, many of them detained by Bashar al-Assad's network of intelligence agencies, as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist ISIS group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing to this day.

When opposition led by group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew President Bashar Assad in April, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government's dungeons.

Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.

Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government's security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn't heard from him since.

Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad's ouster, trying to figure out her father's whereabouts.

“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she told The Associated Press. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”

A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared and to pursue perpetrators.

Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.

Syria’s conflict started as one of the popular uprisings of the so-called 2011 Arab Spring, before Assad crushed the largely peaceful protests and a civil war erupted. Half a million people have been killed and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.