Pro-Gadhafi staff denied entry to Libyan embassy

A group of diplomats has taken control over the chancery and banned  the entry of their colleagues loyal to Muammar Gadhafi – the deposed dictator, who ruled Libya  with an iron fist for more than four decades.

The diplomats now calling the shots at the Libyan Embassy here are understood to have vowed allegiance to the National Transitional Council, which now virtually rules Libya ever since Gadhafi fled Tripoli after the rebel fighters swept into the capital city of the North African country on August 21 last.

Diplomatic sources here told Deccan Herald that the pro-NTC officials of the Libyan Embassy in the city’s Golf Link locality pulled down the green flag of Gadhafi-led Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from the chancery.

The pro-NTC officials instead hoisted the old flag the Kingdom of Libya used between 1951 and 1969. The old flag with horizontal tricolour of red, black and green with white crescent and star in the centre have been adopted by the NTC as the emblem of the new Libyan Republic on February27 last – just a few days after Libya erupted in rebellion against Gadhafi.

According to the sources, a group of five pro-NTC diplomats led by Second Secretary Jalal E Beram took control of the chancery and banned the entry of some of their colleagues, who owe allegiance to the erstwhile regime of Gadhafi.

The pro-Gadhafi Libyan diplomats in New Delhi are led by Ramadan El Baba, who took over as the Charge d Affaires after Ali Al-Essawi, the North African country’s Ambassador to India, resigned on February 21 last, decrying the Gadhafi regime’s violent crackdown on the protesters.

Soon after Al-Essawi resigned as Libyan envoy to India, Salah Bin Aamer Mohamed Abdul Salam — the Counselor (Culture & Information) in the embassy — sent a statement to the Al Jazeera TV channel.