The Chairman of the Libyan Civil Registry Authority, Mohammed Beltamer, has confirmed granting the ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s family – including his son Saif Al-Islam – national identification numbers, which have come to effect only after the February 2011 revolution that toppled Gaddafi’s reign.
Beltamer said Gaddafi’s wife Safia Ferkash had also been granted a national identification number with the rest of the family, denying that the Civil Registry Authority was pressured or threatened into granting the numbers to the Gaddafis.
“The Civil Registry Authority isn’t siding with any political party as it is working for the sake of the Libyan people to preserve the country’s freedom and unity.” He added.
Gaddafi’s era of 42 years saw no national identification numbers’ system; Libyans used to have just family registry, personal IDs and passports for the citizens – the passports and IDs were scripted in handwriting.
Thanks to the February revolution of 2011, Libyans now have a system of national identification numbers and an electronic up-to-international-standards passport.
Both Saif Al-Islam and Al-Saadi Gaddafi were jailed in Libya following the toppling of their father and his regime in 2011, however; both of them are now free after being released from jail. Saif has been freed from Zintan imprisonment for a long time now, while Al-Saadi was freed from Tripoli’s Al-Hadba prison this month.
Saif Gaddafi announced to the New York Times in August that he was going to run for December 24 presidential elections in Libya, in a very controversial step that could trigger more chaos in an already tense environment in Libya less than three months away from the deadline for elections.
