LIBYA: Moammar Kadafi will remain nation’s ‘big father,’ son says
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Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi will play a major role in any new regime formed in the country, his son told the Financial Times on Wednesday.
‘My father would stay as the big father who advises,’ Saadi Kadafi told the Financial Times by telephone from the Libyan capital, Tripoli. He also asserted that up to 85% of the country was ‘very calm and very safe.’
Saadi, one of Kadafi’s seven sons and a former professional soccer player in Italy, is said to have sounded calm during the interview, suggesting that business was proceeding normally in the capital despite witness reports that government forces had fired on citizens.
‘It is now 2 p.m. in Tripoli and it is very calm and quiet — 50% or 60% of the people are working normally,” Kadafi told the Financial Times.
‘Yes, there are people protesting against my father’s rule. It is normal. Everybody needs to be free to express their opinion,’ he told the newspaper.
‘After this positive earthquake, we have to do something for Libya. We have to bring in new blood to govern our country.’
He said his brother Saif El Islam was working on a new constitution and would make an announcement soon, although he gave no details, the Financial Times said.
He said the regime would recover the eastern part of the country ‘sooner or later.’
— Garrett Therolf
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