Forces loyal to Libya's Haftar claim arrest of foreign 'spies'

Rumours are circling in Libya around the arrest of members of the European Union security team, after General Haftar’s Operation Dignity accused foreign workers of spying on Thursday.

Two members of the team protecting the EU delegation were arrested in Benghazi on Friday, and are being detained in one of the city’s hotels, reports Libyan daily al-Wasat.

According to the site, it has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the arrest.

These reports come on the back of a war of words against foreign nationals launched on Thursday by General Khalifa Haftar’s Operation Dignity.

Muhammad Hejazi, official spokesperson for the operation launched against militia groups in Libya, said at a press conference on Thursday that Haftar’s forces had arrested two foreign “spies”, though he did not mention when this had happened.

According to Hejazi, a French and an Austrian national working for the United Nations were detained in Bayda, considered among the most important towns in the east of the country.

“It became clear that they were spies for foreign countries.”

The two were apparently released in possession of “advanced communications and photographic equipment.”

Both the UN and the EU have played down these claims.

The UN denied completely that any workers with the agency had been arrested, saying that the UN has no workers in Bayda.

For its part, the European Union delegation in Libya confirmed that two foreign workers completing a security assessment with a company contracted by the EU had been detained, but said that the arrest occurred a fortnight ago.

Ville Varjola, deputy head of the delegation, told MEE that the workers had been carrying out a security survey of Bayda at the request of Libya’s constitution drafting assembly at the time of their arrest.

“It was a misunderstanding – for most of the time they were detained at their hotel and treated well.”

The accusations of UN spying in Libya by Operation Dignity come less than two weeks after 248 Turkish workers left the country, having been threatened with arrest on espionage charges by Haftar's spokesperson.

Some commentators see Hejazi’s announcement on Thursday as a step back towards Libya’s isolationism under former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Hejazi also provoked surprise and, in some quarters, ridicule, when he announced that “70 percent” of the goals of Operation Dignity had been achieved.

However, for some Operation Dignity is filling a vacuum left by the General National Congress, which according to commentators has been noticeably silent over the past few days.

The High National Elections Commission announced last on Thursday that preliminary results for 120 polling stations across Libya have been received, and scrutinised to ensure that they are genuine.

As a result, votes from 23 stations were discounted because of “illegal activities that affected the results of the election process.”