The Public Prosecution ordered the detention of the director of the State Property Department in Benghazi and four employees of the department and of the Ministry of Housing and Construction after investigating the case of disposing of some Libyan state-owned real estate in the city of Benghazi based on forged official documents.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Public Prosecution Office of the Anti-Corruption Crimes Prosecution in the North Benghazi Court of First Instance has taken over the investigation procedures into the circumstances and conditions that accompanied the drafting of contracts that legalize the sale of a number of state-owned properties, stressing that the procedures proved the lack of legality of the actions because they were based on contracts issued by the office director of the state property in Benghazi and stamped with the stolen office seals. After the expiry of his functional mandate and the delivery of what was in his custody, the procedure for ratification of the validity of what was contained in its body was completed through a contract editor, driven by the illegal profit represented in obtaining sums of money.

He added that the investigation procedures revealed evidence that a number of employees in the State Property Authority and the Ministry of Housing and Construction included the real estate subject of the crime of forgery among the abandoned real estate, and issued licenses permitting the construction of a number of shops outside the scheme in violation of the regulating legislation after collecting an amount of money to which they had no right. The investigator ended up ordering the imprisonment of four employees who were subject to investigations, including the director of the Benghazi State Property Authority, and circulated his order to seize and bring all the absent perpetrators and partners who criminally contributed to the aforementioned facts.