Thinni in court in defamation case brought by former interior minister

By Libya Herald team.

Tripoli/Tunis, 31 July 2017:

Abdullah Al-Thinni, the prime minister appointed by the House of Representatives, has been in court today in Beida in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by his former interior minister, Al-Madani Al-Fakhri.

Fakhri was first suspended by Thinni in early October last year, then definitively sacked, with orders to officials not to have anything further to do with him. The former minister alleges that Thinni defamed him at the time by accusing him, among other things, of corruption.

Thinni has had something of a turbulent relationship with his interior ministers. He is now on his seventh since himself being reappointed prime minister by the House of Representatives in 2014. A stormy relationship with his first, Omar Sinki, led to the latter being removed in February 2015 amid accusations incompetency by Thinni.

In Fakhri’s case, he was removed after an alleged Benghazi drugs dealer was shot by police in Shahat in an apparent identity mix-up. However, it was said at the time by officials close to Thinni that the prime minister had used the incident to rid himself of a capable minister who refused to be a “yes” man.

This is the first time that a Libyan prime minister has had to answer in court in a case brought against him.