Waziri wa Gaddafi akutwa amekufa mtoni

 

 The former Libyan oil minister who last year announced he was defecting from Muammar Gaddafi's regime to support the rebels has been found dead in Vienna.

Police said the corpse of Shukri Ghanem, 69, was found floating in the Danube near his home, which he apparently left early morning on Sunday.

The body was dressed though it carried no identification; it also showed no signs of violence, but an autopsy will be carried out, a police spokesman said: "There would be no signs of violence if someone pushed him in. 

But it is also possible that he became ill and fell into the water." 

Police were alerted by a passerby who saw his body floating near his Vienna residence, close to the UN offices in the Austrian capital.

Ghanem left Libya for Tunisia and then Europe in June as insurgents were pushing to topple Gaddafi. 

He subsequently announced he would support the rebels.

With advanced degrees in law and economics, Ghanem served in senior positions at the Vienna-based Opec before his appointment as Libyan prime minister in June 2003, an office he held until 2006 when he took the oil ministry portfolio.

Considered a member of Gaddafi's inner circle until his defection, he insisted that Libya bore no responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.