John Simpson, World Affairs Editor of the BBC was one of the first
journalist to interview him after he came over to the revolution. He remembered:
When I went to interview Gen Younes in Benghazi the next day, he was extremely nervous. He had managed to hang on to his personal bodyguards and they were nervous too.Gen Younes was an engaging man, well turned out and self-indulgent. He frankly admitted his friendship with Col Gaddafi; they had been friends, he said, ever since they were at officer training college together, before the revolution of 1969.
But he maintained that Col Gaddafi was now seriously mentally unstable and that Libya had become deeply corrupt. For these reasons, as well as for sheer self-preservation, he felt justified in switching sides.
Simpson also had something new to say about how the general came to join the revolution. While this has not been verified by other sources, according to Simpson, Younis volunteered because he got caught. He was on his way to Benghazi to take command,
But the demonstrators struck first and captured him. Gen Younes immediately announced that his plan all along had been to come to Benghazi in order to join the rebels.The rebel leaders guessed that this was a fiction, but they could see the advantages in going along with it.
Whatever the combination of factors that led Abdul Fattah Younis to come over to the side of the revolution, it was a great victory for the Libyan people when he did. No doubt anyone that could have been regarded as Qaddafi's second-in-command for so long had a dark side. Abdul Fattah Younis has done many bad things in the past but supporting the people's struggle against the dictatorship was not one of them. At the time it was a big blow to Qaddafi and a great boast to the uprising.
His death last week was a great loss which will be overcome. His assassination has many lessons which will strengthen the revolution.
Abdul Fattah Younis with front line troops @ Brega on the day before he was murdered.
HOW HE DIED - a Timeline
There has been a lot of confusion in the media about the circumstances surrounding the general's murder. As best I can make out, the time line is this:
1.) The Transitional National Council issued a warrant for the general's arrested.
2.) The general was arrested at Ajdabiya, near the Brega front line, and
brought back to a detention center at Benghazi safely on Wednesday.
3.) The general was assassinated on Thursday by rogue elements among the
rebel security forces as he was leaving the detention facility at
Benghazi after being released.
It was not as the NY Times said:
Shortly before his death the rebels issued a subpoena for the general to return from the front lines for questioning by a panel of judges, reportedly about charges of treason.But instead of relying on a legal process, a group of rebel soldiers sent to retrieve him killed him along with two guards, then dumped their bodies outside the city, Mr. Tarhouni told reporters Friday night.
Once again the New York Times has got its facts all screwed up. It's a bit more complicated than that.
From the Associated Press we have this report on the initial arrest:
a rebel special forces officer under Younis' command told The Associated Press that Younis was taken before dawn on Wednesday from his operations room at Zoueitina, just east of the main front with Gahdafi's forces.Fighters from a rebel faction known as the February 17 Martyr's Brigade came to the operations room and demanded Younis come with them for interrogation, said the officer, Mohammed Agoury, who said he was present at the time.
The general's family told a similar story to the Globe and Mail :
In their first interview with a Western journalist since his death, the general's family offered new details about the events of July 28 ... They described a well co-ordinated operation to arrest the general from his headquarters in Ajdabiya and escort him 150 kilometres up the highway to Benghazi, blocking side roads and opening checkpoint gates for a huge posse of armed men. They say he arrived safely in Benghazi and his vehicle was not damaged...The convoy's final destination was the Garyounis Military Camp at the edge of town, where a rebel judiciary committee apparently wanted to ask the general about recent operations on the front lines.
His family also told more about the arrest warrant, although not specifically about the content:
When the posse of rebels arrived in Ajdabiya to detain the general, they presented an arrest warrant with signatures of the deputy head of the rebel council, Ali Essawi, and a judge named Jomaa al-Jazwi.General Younis called both men before surrendering himself, the family says, and got assurances that the paperwork was legitimate.
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