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Karl Schembri
A Libyan dissident who enjoys political asylum in the US has launched an appeal to the Maltese authorities not to repatriate his nephew who is currently detained in Malta as he would certainly face persecution upon his arrival in Libya.
Mohamed Yousif al Megarief has launched an impassioned appeal on behalf of his 28-year-old nephew Abdalla Juma al Magrus following the Refugee Commission’s refusal to grant him refugee status in Malta earlier this year because of lack of evidence indicating that he faced persecution.
Speaking to MaltaToday from his home in Georgia, al Megarief said his nephew had already been imprisoned twice in Libya because of his collaboration with the National Front for the Salvation of Libya – an underground opposition movement persecuted by the Libyan regime.
“In Gaddafi’s regime there are no records,” he said. “They don’t announce the names of people they want to imprison or persecute, so what do you expect? The only evidence you’ll have is that…when he goes back you’ll realise he was tortured or imprisoned, or killed…there will be no official pronouncement about this.”
Al Megarief is a former Auditor General and Libyan Ambassador to India who resigned from government office in 1980 while publicly denouncing the Gaddafi regime. Since then he has been living in exile, with several assassination attempts on his life by Libyan agents recorded in various news reports around the world. He settled in the US in 1991, where he was granted political asylum.He says his nephew from Benghazi was involved in distributing banned political literature printed by NFSL in Libya.
A written declaration by al Megarief calling on the Maltese authorities to seek his testimony regarding his nephew was tabled in Parliament by Labour MP Anglu Farrugia last Monday.
In the declaration al Megarief states: “My nephew has been a vocal and active supporter of the NFSL and (of) me personally while he was living inside Libya. He had been subjected to persecution and imprisonment from 1994 to 1996, and again in 1999 until 2000. Besides that, because of his underground political involvement, my nephew and his family have been subjected to a campaign of persecution at the hands of the Libyan authorities merely for being related to me. Many of my friends and relatives have been imprisoned, tortured, and some have been executed.”
Amnesty International confirms in its human rights reports on Libya that Al Megarief’s brother, ‘Ezzat Yousif al Megarief – a prominent member of NFSL – “disappeared” in Cairo in March 1990. His whereabouts since that time have remained unknown, although unconfirmed reports have suggested that they were both handed over to the Libyan authorities.
Farrugia said the Refugee Commission could not refuse to grant Al Magrus refugee status “simply because he doesn’t carry documentation to prove that he would be at a high risk if sent back to his country.”
Refugee Commissioner Charles Buttigieg said he would not comment on the case as applications for refugee status had to remain confidential in accordance with the Refugee Act.
Sources close to the Refugee Commission however slammed Farrugia, saying that by naming the asylum seeker he was compromising his own safety, especially if he was truly on the Libyan regime’s hit list.
Farrugia insists that he felt compelled to speak after the Commission refused to grant him asylum simply because he had no documented evidence, “to avoid a repeat of what happened to Eritrean refugees who were deported from Malta.” He said he expected Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg to intervene. When contacted, a spokesman for the minister said Borg would not interfere in the Refugee Commission’s processing of requests for refugee status.
Although the Appeals Board still has to start hearing his case, Farrugia is concerned that if al Magrus’s request is turned down again because of lack of documentation, he might be deported back to Libya overnight.
Al Megarief said: “This is like suicide. You will only know I committed suicide after you see me dead. The only one to know he’s in prison will be the prisoner himself, and then it will be too late.”
An Amnesty International researcher said the international human rights watchdog based in London was taking note of the case and was assessing it.
According to Amnesty’s Libya human rights report 2004, a Libyan national who was in Malta in 2002, Mustapha Muhammad Krer, and who was assured by the Libyan Embassy in Malta that he would not be arrested on his return, was arrested at the Tripoli airport and remains arrested in ‘Ayn Zara prison to this date.
Krer had left Libya in 1989 after being sought by the Libyan authorities and following the arrest of his brother. He reportedly chose to return to Libya after his family was informed by the Libyan authorities of the death in custody of his brother. Since his arrest at the airport, Amnesty said he first saw a lawyer on 15 March this year, nearly two years after his arrest, when he appeared for the first time before the People’s Court.
Krer is charged alongside scores of others in connection with his alleged affiliation to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an accusation which he denies.
In December 1999, Amnesty International alerted the Australian government that was about to deport an NFSL member back to Libya that the asylum seeker would be at serious risk of torture if repatriated.
“Political opposition is not tolerated in Libya,” the organisation had warned. “Amnesty International continues to receive testimony of political detainees being routinely tortured in incommunicado detention. Detainees are routinely tortured in order to extract confessions from them which are then used to incriminate them. Alleged methods of torture include beating, hanging by the wrist from a high ceiling, chaining to a wall for hours, clubbing, being suspended from a pole inserted between the knees and elbows, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes and attacks by aggressive dogs.”
Amnesty International has documented cases of returned refugees being arrested on arrival in Libya who remain in detention without charge or trial. Amnesty International has also received information on returned refugees who have been tortured in detention.
karl@newsworkltd.com
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