PERPIGNAN, FRANCE // A French court Monday lifted a freeze order on Muammar Qaddafi’s personal plane, following a bitter battle over the luxury aircraft between a Kuwaiti conglomerate and the Libyan government.
Kuwait’s Al Kharafi group had the Airbus A340, seen as a symbol of Qaddafi’s extravagance by the rebels who overthrew him, seized amid a near billion-euro debt related to a contract to build a beach resort in Libya.
The plane has been in the southern French city of Perpignan since 2012, soon after the dictator’s regime fell, where it had been sent for €3 million worth of maintenance work by Air France — as yet unpaid.
“It is very satisfying to see the judge has recognised the fact this plane, which belongs to the Libyan state, has immunity from being seized,” said Carole Sportes, lawyer for the Libyan side.
In 2006 Al Kharafi signed a contract with Qaddafi to build a beach resort on along the Mediterranean coast, which it was to run for 90 years, but Tripoli cancelled the deal unilaterally in 2010.
A Cairo court in 2013 ruled Al Kharafi was owed €935 million over the broken contract and the company had the plane seized as part of efforts to recover the money.
* Agence France-Presse
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