Funding rebels with frozen assets ‘piracy’: Gaddafi govt

International Contact Group for Libya has promised to tap frozen Gaddafi regime assets to finance rebels.

An international plan to fund rebels fighting Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s regime with frozen government assets is “like piracy on the high seas,” the country’s deputy foreign minister said today.

“Libya still,according to the international law,is one sovereign state and any use of the frozen assets,it’s like piracy on the high seas,” Khaled Kaim told a news conference in Tripoli.

The International Contact Group for Libya met in Rome yesterday and agreed on a new fund to aid the rebels,which will initially be funded by donations and loans,and promised to tap frozen Gaddafi regime assets to finance it at a later date.

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Kaim also dismissed the contact group as a whole,saying: “This group is ambiguous,it’s a strange body,and we consider it a non-entity.”

Massive Libyan protests in February inspired by the revolts that toppled long-time autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia escalated into war when Gaddafi’s troops fired on demonstrators and protesters seized several eastern towns.

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