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March 3, 2006

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LIBYA : GADHAFI SAYS ITALIAN CONSULATE RIOTERS AIMED TO KILL CONSUL, ANGRY

 
March 3, 2006,
 
By ANDnetwork .com
 
The protesters who attacked the Italian consulate in Benghazi would have killed the consul and his family if the police had not opened fire, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has said of last month's riot in which 11 people were killed.
 
 

Libya's official news agency JANA quoted Gadhafi as telling the People's General Congress - the closest thing The protesters who attacked the Italian consulate in BenghaziLibya has to a parliament - on Thursday night that the rioters were venting their hatred for Italy rather than protesting the cartoons about Prophet Muhammad, as has been widely reported.

Elements of a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators broke into the grounds of the Italian consulate on Feb. 17 and set fire to vehicles and part of the building. Police struggled to contain the riot, which lasted six hours, and shot dead 11 people. Thirty-five people were wounded, but no Italians were harmed.

The crowd appeared to be reacting to an Italian Cabinet minister who publicly supported the Danish publication of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, which had provoked protests across the Muslim world. Italian diplomats said later there was an anti-Gadhafi factor in the protest.

"Libyans do not know Denmark, they do not hate Denmark. They know Italy and they hate Italy," Gadhafi told the congress,  according to a report on JANA's Web site on Friday.

"People would have killed the consul and his family if live ammunition had not been used," Gadhafi said.

"They said: 'so what if the consul and his family are killed. Italy killed some 700,000 Libyans'," Gadhafi said of the rioters, referring to the Italian colonization of Libya in 1911-1943.

It was the first time that Gadhafi's government had blamed the riots on the Italian colonial period.

Source : Sapa-AP /dg  

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