Libya’s rebel commanders discussed Tripoli invasion in Malta

General Ramadan Zarmuh, Colonel Ahmed Hashem, Colonel Brahim Betal Mal, and Suleiman Fortiya, Misurata’s minister on the Benghazi-based Transitional Council, were brought to Malta by sea and given special visas to land and attend the talks which were held here on 19 July.

The delegation was driven under escort by security branch police in unmarked cars to ambassador Daniel Rondeau’s home in Zebbug.

Unknown to Libyan secret service operatives, who were sent to Malta to mind him following the uprising, Libyan ambassador Saadun Suayed managed to attend the secret meeting and talk with the Misurata representatives.

Zarmuh, Hashem, Betal Mal and Fortiya reportedly discussed the preparations for the Tripoli assault, and Malta’s strategic role to further assist the operation.

The delegation from Misurata later met with French intelligence operatives at the Excelsior Hotel in Floriana, and was later secretly flown to Paris and received by President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.

In Paris, the Libyan rebels secured the delivery of weapons, communications and other equipment that was to be used to arm the brigades that stormed Tripoli via Misurata and took over Col. Gaddafi’s Bab Aziziya compound.

Two weeks after the Malta meeting, the alarming news of the death of General Abdel Fatah Younes, commander of the rebel forces, forced the French government to insist on sticking to August 20 as the date during which the assault on Tripoli had to commence.

In a bid to avoid serious splits within the NTC in Benghazi, President Sarkozy gave the order to have weapons sent over to the Libya rebels.

Assisted by covert French, British and Qatari operatives, hundreds of Misurata fighters received day and night training and were regularly supplied from Malta with communication and other materials.

While weapons were dropped by French aircraft over the Nafusa mountains and in villages around Zawiya and Zliten, the French Navy assisted in the deliveries to Misurata via the French assault ship Mistral, which came to Malta twice in a week during August and departed from Malta on the morning of 20 August, reaching the Libyan coast by nightfall and assisting the rebels in their sea landing on Tripoli via Misurata.

Meanwhile, two Libyan secret service agents are set to be expelled from Malta after it was discovered that they sent diplomatic cables to Tripoli throughout the uprising, giving names of Libyan dissidents in Malta.

The names include prominent Libyan dissident Tarek Tarhouni and businessman Mario Debono, who were earmarked as ‘conspirators’ against the regime.

Tarhouni and Debono fronted the I-Go Libya Foundation which provided humanitarian aid for Misurata.

The cables were intercepted by the French secret service and copies of which have been seen by senior government officials.

While Tarek Tarhouni is in Tripoli at the moment and unable to react, Mario Debono told MaltaToday that all he did was to help the Libyan people at this difficult moment.

“It shows that Col. Gaddafi had something for who was providing humanitarian aid to his people,” Debono said, adding that he lost many Libyan friends during the revolution.

“Every life of a friend lost during the revolution doubled my resolve to help the Libyan people, and I will continue to do it for as long as it is necessary,” he said.

Spokesmen for both the Office of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Ministry did not reply to requests sent in MaltaToday.