General Hariri (Photo: Social media)

General Omar Al-Hariri, the first military head of the former National Transitional Council (NTC), was killed in a car crash along with his wife on Sunday while driving near Beida city in the Jebel Akhdar.

Sources close to Libyan army’s general command confirmed the death. The accident, in which it is reported other members of the family were injured, occurred on the road between Guba and Beida.

Hariri, who graduated from the military college in Benghazi city rose to prominence as a member of Qaddafi’s free officers group that seized power in 1969. In 1972 he was appointed governor of the Jebel Akhdar region, then in 1974 Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers.

However the following year, disillusioned with Qaddafi, he and Omar Mahaishi and other officers planned a coup to topple the regime. It was discovered and some 300 people were arrested, 21 of whom were sentenced to death, Hariri among them. However the sentence was not carried out and he was kept in jail until 1990. This included four and a half years in solitary confinement. In 1990, the death sentence was lift but he was held under house arrest until the 2011 revolution.   when he was freed.

Joining the revolution, he then briefly became the National Transitional Council’s military affairs minister, being replaced in May by Jalal al-Dagheili. Thereafter, he was appointed to the command of the Armoured Ninth Brigade and the military area of Tobruk. He retired in 2013.

Fatal traffic accidents are tragically all to common in Libya which has the highest road mortality rate in the world.

By Libya Herald reporter.

https://www.libyaherald.com/2015/11/03/ntcs-first-military-minister-dies...