The Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi has “tens of billions” in cash secretly hidden away in Tripoli, allowing him to prolong his fight against rebel forces despite an international freeze on many of the Libyan government’s assets (værdier), according to US and other intelligence officials.
Colonel Qaddafi has control over the huge cash deposits, which have been stored at the Libyan Central Bank and other banks around the Libyan capital in recent years, the officials said.
The US has relied on imposing financial pain on the Qaddafi government, freezing nearly 32 billion USdollar of Libya’s assets, according to Treasury Department officials. The UN and the EU have imposed separate sanctions and have frozen assets as well. But those actions have been limited to funds outside of Libya.
The EU has extended an asset freeze against Qaddafi and his associates to include five key financial entities in a move that will extend EU measures to sovereign-wealth funds and the central bank.
The sanctions will freeze European holdings of the Libyan Investment Authority, its former Deputy Chief Executive Officer Mustafa Zarti, the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio, the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Libyan Housing and Infrastructure Board and the country’s central bank.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
