London, April 20: Britain has launched an attempt at the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on the Libyan ruler’s wife on concerns that she may use her fortune to boost her husband.
The Security Council had presumably forgotten to include Safia Farkash, Muammar Qaddafi’s wife of 40 years, among the Libyan despot’s associates and family members whose assets had been frozen and were banned from international travel in its previous resolutions of February and March.
Enemies of the Libyan ruler have put his wife’s personal fortune at $30 billion (£18 billion).
Mrs Farkash is less of a public figure than some other Arab rulers’ wives, but she is known to control Buraq Air, a private rival to the Libyan state, and is said to have amassed 20 tons of gold reserves.
The mother of his daughter and six of his seven sons, she became Colonel Qaddafi’s second wife in 1971, after nursing him through a bout of appendicitis.
The British government, together with France and Germany, has now requested that Mrs Farkash be added to the sanctions blacklist, along with 23 other Libyans and several companies.
This is while that Farkash’s assets in the United States, along with those of the rest of her family have already been frozen.
——–Agencies