A luxury jet used by former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's has become the subject of a court battle between a creditor and a Libyan Kuwaiti government agency.
According to a report from MidiLibre/Scoop, the Airbus A340, now stationed in Perpignan, France, was repaired by a subcontractor of Air France, the company EAS Services in Perpignan, having been damaged by gunfire at Tripoli Airport.
In the High Court of Perpignan, a Kuwaiti company called Al-Kharafi claimed rights to the aircraft, arguing that following the breach of a contract signed in 2006 with the Gaddafi regime, an Egyptian tribunal decided in March 2013 to pay $945 million compensation to this company.
But a company called Executive Authority for Special Flights, which is part of the internationally recognised Libyan government, has opposed the decision, saying "as an aircraft owned by a State and used for the functioning of the State, especially in these times of reconstruction of the State, there is immunity from such measures to guard against seizures".
A decision has been postponed until January 2016.
According to a report from The Telegraph, the plane was bought by Gaddafi in 2003 for $111 million, and had been operated for him by Afriqiyah Airways. In 2009 Gaddafi sent it to Glasgow, with his son Saif al-Islam on board, to bring home the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
(Sources: MidiLibre/Scoop, AFP, The Telegraph)
(Court image via Shutterstock)
