Gaddafi regime facing collapse as 12 ministers set to defect to UK
April 1st, 2011 - 12:38 pm ICT by ANI
London, Apr.1 (ANI): Libyan security sources have said that around a dozen senior officials are expected to abandon Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle, leaving his regime on the verge of collapse.
Sources claimed two senior Libyan ministers with long-standing links to the United Kingdom were already in Tunis discussing terms to defect with British and French intelligence officers.
Another group of six or seven ministers, diplomats and officials have also reportedly driven into Tunisia with no intention of returning.
Ali al-Treiki, Gaddafi’s minister for Africa, had announced in Cairo that he had also cut his ties with the regime.
At least six senior officials have spoken with British intelligence agents and their sources about following the Libyan intelligence head Musa Kusa to the UK.
British officials said that Kusa’s defection could be the potential ‘tipping point’ to force others to abandon Gaddafi.
Kusa was one of the few around Gaddafi who was not a member of his tribe, but yet gave Gadaffi independent advice. He is also said to have been a mentor to Gadaffi’s sons.
Whitehall security sources said Kusa had finally decided to abandon Gadaffi because he thought a Nato airstrike would kill him.
Kusa has been debriefed at an MI6 safe house in Britain after he landed there. He was asked about Gaddafi’s whereabouts and state of mind.
The British Government is expected to ask Kusa to give a public statement to the media to maximise the propaganda value of his defection.
Officials said that Kusa had been in contact with Foreign Secretary William Hague and MI6 for weeks and had travelled to Tunisia from Tripoli on Monday. It is believed that he told MI6 that evening that he wanted to defect.
It was only when he was aboard a private jet and had been cleared to land at Farnborough airfield in Hampshire on Wednesday that the British finally knew they had what one official called their ‘prize’, the Daily Mail reports.
The decision to allow Kusa to defect to Britain was personally approved by Prime Minister David Cameron. (ANI)
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