Tripoli: Libya’s prosecutor general has ordered the arrest of four more officials, bringing to 12 the number held as part of an inquiry into this month’s flood that killed thousands.
Flooding caused by hurricane-strength Storm Daniel tore through eastern Libya on September 10, leaving at least 3,893 people dead and thousands more missing.
The seaside city of Derna was the worst-hit in the flash flood, which witnesses likened to a tsunami. It burst through two dams and washed entire neighbourhoods into the Mediterranean.
The four additional suspects, including two members of the Derna municipal council, were arrested for suspected “bad management of the administrative and financial missions which were incumbent upon them”, said a statement issued overnight Thursday-Friday by the prosecutor general’s office in Tripoli, western Libya. On Monday the office ordered the arrest of eight officials, including Derna’s mayor who was sacked after the flood.
Libya’s prosecutor general Al-Seddik al-Sour belongs to the internationally recognised administration in the country’s west. Another, in the flood-stricken east, is backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar. On Friday the eastern authorities said they would begin paying compensation to people affected by the disaster, which a UN agency has said uprooted more than 43,000 people. “Cheques have been handed over to the mayors” after a relief committee received records of damage caused by the flooding, the government based in Libya’s east said in a statement. –Agencies
