Top Libya body adopts law barring Gaddafi era officials

Libya's General National Congress on Sunday, under pressure from armed militias, voted through a controversial law to exclude former regime officials from government posts. Gunmen who had surrounded the foreign and justice ministries to press for officials from the regime of the late dictator Moamer Kadhafi to be sacked from top government jobs lifted the sieges when state television broke the news, they told AFP. The GNC, Libya's top political body, adopted the text with 115 votes in favour of the key article in the controversial law barring Kadhafi-era officials from having any political role in Libya. Under the law, all those who occupied key official posts from September 1, 1969 when Kadhafi took power, until the fall of the regime in October 2011 will be excluded from government for five years. The proposal for the law caused a stir among Libya's political elite, as senior members of the government could be affected, including Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and GNC president Mohamed Megaryef. Both were diplomats under Kadhafi before joining the opposition in exile. Fifteen lawmakers also risk loosing their jobs once the GNC's legal commission ratifies the law, including the vice president of the national assembly Jomaa Atiga, an official said. A special commission will now be set up to implement the new law. Gunmen, many of them former rebels who helped topple Kadhafi's regime, had encircled the foreign ministry for a week and the justice ministry since Tuesday to pressure the national assembly to pass the law. They had threatened an open-ended siege of the ministries and warned they would spread their action if the GNC adopted a law that stipulated exceptions to allow key individuals to keep their jobs. Since the fall of Kadhafi's regime, militia groups, mostly ex-rebels, have managed border controls, prisons, strategic facilities in the country and vital institutions. They received salaries and other perks from the authorities, while some also reportedly benefited from smuggling and extortion.