Libyan official denies “Saddam” satellite channel broadcasting from Tripoli

Text of report by Saudi-owned leading pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat website on 3 December

[Report by Khalid Mahmud in Cairo and Muhammad al-Da'mah in Jordan: "Libya Denies 'Saddam' Channel's Transmission Was From its Territories and Lawyer of Former President's Daughter: She Has No Connections With it. Its Television Manager to 'Al-Sharq al-Awsat': It Can Broadcast From Anywhere in the World But Not From Our Country"]

A high-level Libyan official has denied reports that the satellite channel having the names of “Saddam”, “Al-Arabi”, and “Al-Lafitah”, which glorified Saddam Husayn before transmission was cut off abruptly on the first day of Id Al-Adha last Friday [27 November] only four days after starting its test transmission, was broadcasting from the Libyan capital Tripoli. The lawyer of Raghad, the former Iraqi president’s daughter, denied she had any connection with the financing of the channel.

Ali al-Kilani, the Libyan television director, told “Al-Sharq al-Awsat” in a telephone contact from the Libyan capital Tripoli: “There is no channel with this name broadcasting from Libya. This is something definite.” Al-Kilani, who is also a known Libyan poet who wrote the Martyr song which praised Saddam and denounced the scene of his execution which the Iraqi channel celebrated, added: “There is not inside Libya any Iraqi satellite channel or any channel dedicated to late Iraqi President Saddam Husayn.”

Al-Kilani also denied that the channel had contacted him to ask for his permission before broadcasting the song he wrote about the scene of the former Iraqi president’s execution at dawn on Id Al-Adha day, 30 December 2006. Al-Kilani, who is very close to Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi, is the first Libyan official who denies officially Libya’s responsibility for the launch of the “Saddam” channel. The reason for linking Libya to the channel was apparently Col. Al-Qadhafi’s demand at the Arab summit last March in the Qatari capital Doha to establish an Arab committee to investigate the way the former Iraqi president was tried and executed.

Iraqi sources in Cairo told “Al-Sharq al-Awsat” that a person who said he was Algerian claimed from his base in the Syrian capital Damascus that he was the channel’s manager. They pointed out that the officials in charge of the channel’s transmission tricked the management of the Egyptian “Nile Sat” satellite by renting the channel indirectly through middlemen. It was not possible to contact immediately any of the channel or “Nile Sat” officials to comment on this information. “Al-Arab” channel, known in Iraq as the “Saddam” television, appeared on the Bahraini satellite network (Nur Sat) and the Egyptian one (Nile Sat) last Friday. Al-Kilani asserted that “this channel can broadcast from anywhere in the world but not from inside Libya.

On the other hand, Haytham al-Harsh, the lawyer of Raghad Saddam Husayn, denied that his client had any connection with the channel “from the legal and actuality aspects” and told “Al-Sharq al-Awsat” that “following the receipt of many letters of congratulations to my client when the channel started broadcasting from correspondents who thought she was behind it, my client thanks them and confirms that she has no connection with this or any other satellite channel.” Al-Harsh pointed out that the denial was to prevent any confusion or ambiguity or hint linking the name of Mrs Raghad Saddam to this or any other channel. He stressed that “Mrs Raghad has no legal link with this channel, its management, the means of its transmission, or its presentation.” He pointed out that “the clarification aims to prevent linking her name to the channel.

On the other hand and talking about the memoirs published by Lawyer Khalil al-Dulaymi (Saddam’s defence lawyer during his trial by Iraqi judiciary), Al-Harsh said his client had no connection with them and did not read them either before or after their publication and that she heard about these memoirs when the media reported them.