Gaddafi could never be our friend: Ashraf

Minister for LGRD and Cooperatives and Awami League (AL) General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said he is happy about the death of the former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. The LGRD minister said this at a discussion in the city Friday marking the Jail Killing Day, reports bdnews24.com. "I'm so happy that Gaddafi is no more. Those who sheltered the killers of Bangabandhu, my father (Syed Nazrul Islam) and Nasim Bhai's (Mohammad Nasim) father M Mansur Ali cannot be our friends," the minister said. On November 3 in 1975, four leaders of the wartime national government -- acting president Syed Nazrul Islam, prime minister Tajuddin Ahmed and cabinet ministers M Mansur Ali and AHM Qamruzzaman -- were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail. The four, who were close acquaintances and political associates of independence architect Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were immediately arrested after his assassination on August 15, 1975. The assassins, believed to be the masterminds of the 1975 coup, stormed Dhaka central jail and shot dead the four leaders, only three months later. Gaddafi had offered shelter to the assassins in Libya, the country he took over 42 years ago through a military coup in 1969. The AL general secretary expressed bewilderment over national dailies for not publishing any report on the mass killing in Libya by Gaddafi and his sheltering the killers of Bangabandhu.