Nieuwe Europese sancties tegen Libië (en).
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU has published the full list of 26 Libyan regime members on its sanctions list. But as the international crackdown begins, Libyan authorities have arrested three Dutch soldiers involved in the evacuation effort.
The EU list comes on top of a UN travel ban and asset freeze imposed last weekend on Moammar Gaddafi and 15 associates.
The extra 10 names on the EU register include Gaddafi's 58-year-old wife, former hospital nurse Safia Farkash Al-Barassi, named for her "closeness of association with [the] regime." A recently leaked US cable describes her as a "socially conservative" woman who fell out with her son, Saif al-Islam, over his "hard-partying, womanising ways."
The other extra EU names are: Abu Shaariya (Gaddafi's brother-in-law); Colonel Mas'ud Abdulhafiz (a spy chief); Mohammed Abdussalam (counter-terrorism director); Al-Barrani Ashkal (another spy chief); Omar Ashkal ("involved in violence against demonstrators"); Abu Zayd Dorda ("regime loyalist"); Bachir Saleh (Gaddafi's head of cabinet); General Tohami (a senior security official); and Mohammed Boucharaya Farkash (a senior intelligence official).
Austrian authorities are also looking into an asset freeze on one Mustafa Zarti, the vice-chairman of Libya's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), who flew from Tripoli to Vienna on 21 February on what may have been a mission to hide Gaddafi money.
The LIA is believed to manage tens of billions of euros worth of Libyan assets worldwide.
The assets include: a large chunk of the luxury Corinthia Hotel in London, which hosted actor Colin Firth during the Bafta film awards last month; a €145 million office building in London's financial district; a €180 million retail building on Oxford Street and a €7 million office in the city's Mayfair district.
The fund owns a stake in Pearson PLC, which in turn owns the Financial Times. It also has stakes in Italy's soccer club Juventus, Italian arms firm Finmeccanica, Italy's top bank UniCredit and its biggest energy company Eni, as well as three oil refineries and up to 3,000 petrol stations in Europe.
EU countries, led by France, are currently working on a follow-up package of sanctions designed to target Libyan companies on top of the 26 individuals to make it harder for them to hold onto their wealth.
The follow-up package is unlikely to include oil and gas firms, which make up 95 percent of Libya's income. "The production of oil has started again in areas not controlled by Gaddafi. It would be unwise to cut the flow of dollars to people trying to fight him," an EU diplomat said.
A contact at a London firm specialising in asset-chasing told this website that if Gaddafi falls, the next step will be a request by the new authorities in Libya to recover the frozen funds, as happened in Egypt and Tunisia.
The contact noted that Gaddafi in the run-up to the UN and EU sanctions decisions probably began shifting money out of the EU and US to "friendly jurisdictions" where the funds can be "layered" (changing hands three or four times) and then brought back into the EU laundered of any obvious links.
He said it is normal for crisis-hit regimes to also fly out large amounts of cash and gold to friendly countries at the last minute, in reference to a series of flights by Gaddafi's executive jet to Minsk last week.
The Libyan authorities have so far co-operated with EU authorities on the evacuation of the 9,000-or-so EU citizens who wanted to leave the country.
But in a worrying development, the Dutch defence ministry on Thursday said Gaddafi forces on Sunday captured three Dutch soldiers involved in a helicopter rescue mission near the coastal town of Sirt, Gaddafi's birthplace. The Hague declined to classify the men as "hostages" but told the AP news agency they are in "intense negotiations" for their release.
Swedish press reports that Libya also refused landing on Wednesday to a Swedish military plane involved in getting people out.