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By Abdul-Jalil Mustafa.
Amman, 12 July:
An unspecified number of Libyans, arrested on charges of rioting and arson, appeared before Jordanian interrogators on . . .[restrict]Thursday in a probe ordered by Acting Public Security Director General Mohammad Rakkad, according to an official statement.
Some 67 people were injured on Wednesday in fighting involving a group of Libyans who had finished their police training in Jordan three days ago. They were reportedly protesting the delay in flying them home, itself caused by the failure of Libyan Airlines aircraft to arrive in Jordan on schedule.
The wounded were 58 Jordanian policemen, a member of the Civil Defence fire fighting squad and eight Libyan police trainees, a PSD statement said.
The Libyan trainees set afire facilities and at a police sports centre and burnt public and private property before they were brought under contol by Jordanian security forces.
Some of the Libyan police trainees fled the scene to the adjacent residential areas and were chased and apprehended by the Jordanian authorities.
The statement did not give the number of arrested Libyans, but official sources put their number at 10 and said they were responsible for starting the rioting.
They appeared before the investigation panel in the presence of the Libyan ambassador Mohammad Al-Barghathi who apologised to the Jordanian government, saying ”the Libyan state, as represented by its embassy, bears total responsibility for what happened”, according to the PSD statement.
Barghathi, accompanied by Rakkad, visited the injured Libyan police trainees at hospital and later assured their families that they were ”in good health and will return home shortly”, the statement said.
”Investigations are still continuing by the PSD to decide who started the riots and arson, appraise the losses and send a report to the Libyan diplomatic mission,” it added.
Other Libyans who took part in the riots were allowed to leave for home on Thursday morning.
A group of Jordanians demonstrated outside the Libyan embassy in Amman Wednesday night to protest the behaviour of the Libyans.
About 1,900 Libyans, mostly former revolutionaries, on Monday ended three months of training on various police activities at the Jordanian International Police Training Centre.
They represented the first batch of 10,000 Libyans whom the Jordanian government pledged to train as policemen under an agreement that was signed with Tripoli in October.
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