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TRIPOLI, Feb 18: The Libyan government suspended its security minister and a police chief on Saturday, a day after 11 people were killed during a demonstration at the Italian consulate in the northeastern city of Benghazi.
An official said the final toll could be as high as 25.
In Rome, Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli resigned, bowing to pressure from government colleagues after Libya blamed his anti-Islamic insults for igniting the demonstration — the most deadly yet of a continuing international wave of protests against the cartoons published in European newspapers.
“Security Minister Nasr Mabrouk has been suspended from his duties and taken before an investigating magistrate,” read a statement from the general secretariat of Libya’s parliament.
The statement added that a national day of mourning would be observed on Sunday to honour ‘our martyrs’.
The deaths took place after about 1,000 people had gathered to protest outside the Benghazi consulate.
Police used live ammunition on the demonstrators, who set fire to Italian flags and part of the consulate premises.
It was the first action against Italian interests in a Muslim country since the cartoon controversy began.
Residents said that calm had returned to Benghazi by Saturday morning.
NO CONTRITION: Italian Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli, of the xenophobic Northern League party, had appeared on a prime time news programme on Thursday wearing a T-shirt printed with the anti-Islam cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year and which have recently been republished in other European countries.
Mr Calderoli, who has frequently attacked Islam in recent weeks and once called Muslim immigrants in Italy ‘Ali Babas’, seemed defiant to the last, showing no signs of contrition in a series of newspaper interviews.
“I can be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt. The question is different. What’s at stake is Western civilisation,” the daily La Repubblica quoted him as saying.
The Qadhafi foundation, headed by the reform-minded son of Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi, issued a statement blaming the riot on Mr Calderoli’s ‘provocative and outrageous’ actions.
In a telephone conversation Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Libyan leader agreed that the anti-Italian violence should have no ‘negative repercussions’ for bilateral relations, Mr Berlusconi’s office said.
PROTESTERS TO BE TRIED: The Libyan statement suggested that an unspecified number of protesters would also stand trial, saying that ‘perpetrators of the protests and those responsible for what happened in the protests will face trials in court’.
“We deplore that the protests left casualties .... and we denounce the exaggerated use of force by the police who had exceeded the limits of their duties,” the statement said. —AFP/Reuters
