By Saber Ayyub.
Tripoli, 10 December 2015:
Following days of rumours and counter-rumours as to whether Omar Gawairi, the high-profile head of the . . .[restrict]Beida-based Information and Culture Administration was being replaced, the Thinni government today confirmed that it had relieved him of position and given the job to journalist Khaled Najem.
Gawairi had earlier said reports of his departure were “malicious rumours”. He has now wished his successor good luck, asking him to go and see him so he can formally hand over his functions. He also said on his Facebook page that he had received no formal letter from the government but had heard about it from Arish Said, Thinni’s director of foreign media. As for himself, he said he was going to Benghazi to join the supported forces backing Khalifa Hafter who are fighting against the various jihadist forces including the so-called Islamic State and Ansar Al-Sharia.
Reports first surfaced just over a week ago that Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni intended to remove Gawairi, who is from Misrata. They followed intense criticism of his attack on a new EU-supported news agency in the country, the Libya Cloud News Agency. He had allegedly said that any Libyans who worked for it were traitors. His statement provoked a strong public rebuke from the government which said that his views in no way represented its position.
Reports were circulating for much of yesterday that Thinni had finally made the decision to replace him with Najem who later in the day reportedly told colleague that he would be taking over. However, there were also reports yesterday that Thinni was worried about the implications of removing the last Misratan from his administration.
Gawairi earned himself something of combative reputation long before the Libya Cloud row with attacks on both Turkey and Tunisia, accusing the former of providing support to what he called “terrorist groups” in Libya. In the case of Tunisia, he attacked it over its plans to reopen its consulate in Tripoli. He also claimed nine months ago that Libya had information that Islamist terrorists were planning to head to Europe disguised as refugees and that arms for use by terrorists had reached France along the illegal migrant route from Libya. [/restrict]
