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By Umar Khan.
Tripoli, 9 December:
The decision by the Ministry of Interior to dissolve the Supreme Security Committee (SSC) by the year . . .[restrict]end is being implemented and SSC ground forces will cease to work from 1 January 2013, according to Hashim Bishar, head of SSC’s Tripoli branch.
Speaking to the Libya Herald, Bishar said that no member of the SSC would be paid from next month. Only Interior Ministry employees working in different security departments would receive salaries. “From next month, only the fighters that have signed contracts with the ministry will be paid. That includes all the fighters who were offered jobs in different departments or those who applied for the jobs.”
“Twenty-six thousand fighters were registered with SSC Tripoli and they have been paid their salaries”, he said. “But only 11,675 out of these were actually working and around 95 percent of these fighters have already signed contracts with the ministry,” Bishar added. He said that all the men had joined the departments individually. “All the fighters from different cities who have signed the contract have agreed to join the ministry forces in individual capacity. It will mark the ending of the organised brigades working together.”
Bishar says the administrative section of the SSC will continue working for another few months until all the registered fighters are transferred. “From next month, for the first time after the revolution, there will be regular operations in the police stations in all different areas. There will be no ground forces for SSC — only the administrative body that will vanish as soon as the registered fighters are handed over to the ministries.”
Asked about the existence of what is in effect two SSCs in Tripoli, Bishar said that it was the result of a wrong decision by the Interior Ministry that had not been not resolved despite several promises. He explained that the SSC was originally created to provide security for Tripoli alone. But shortly afterwards a national SCC was set up under the control of the ministry which then set up offices across the country including one in Tripoli. “The confusion started when the central SSC opened a separate office in Tripoli despite our presence. After several attempts to solve the issue, we just moved on because we knew it was a matter of time before the entire SSC was dissolved.”
Bishar says that there is proper coordination between the two SSC groups, “Although there were a few instances of lack of communication between the two, we have now proper coordination with them. They contact us whenever there is any problem to check our movement and we coordinate as well.”
Asked about the abduction of Abdul Hamid Al-Tubuly by an SSC unit in Tripoli last Tuesday, Bishar refused to divulge any details about the matter.
“The case of Dr Hamid is still open and we will be filing our report to the Interior Ministry in the next couple of days. I cannot say much at this time because of its sensitive nature but there were some questions regarding the ownership of his villa and the equipment inside it but we didn’t have enough time to interrogate him because of the intervention by head of the General National Congress and by continuous pressure from some of GNC members.”
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