Libya Complains to U.N. on Airlift
UNITED NATIONS — Libya is seeking an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss the U.S. airlift from Chad of 600 Libyans allegedly trained by America to destabilize Libya’s ruler, Col. Moammar Kadafi.
No date has been set for the meeting, which Libyan Ambassador Ali Treiki requested in a letter to the council released Monday.
On Sunday, Libyan Foreign Minister Ibrahim Mohammed Bashari said of the evacuated Libyan former prisoners of war: “They were taken hostage because they have a lot of information. They were trained and armed to destabilize the government of their own country or the political system of other nations.”
The United States confirmed on Monday flying an unspecified number of Libyan prisoners of war out of Chad but refused to say where they had been taken.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said only that the prisoners would be resettled in “a number of different countries.”
“A number of Libyans captured by the Chadians in battle have been repatriated to Libya in recent days aboard Libyan aircraft,” Boucher said.
“Some of those captured are unwilling to return to Libya, and as a humanitarian gesture, the United States provided transportation out of Chad to a number of (them).”
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