• Gaddafi-era official ’drowned’ in Danube
    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/04/2012430172432510504.html

    An autopsy done on Shukri Ghanem has found that the former Libyan oil minister drowned, Austrian police say.

    Roman Hahslinger, police spokesman, said on Monday that the autopsy results on Ghanem’s corpse also showed there were no signs of violence.

    Ghanem’s fully clothed body was found in the Danube in Vienna on Sunday, a few hundred meters from his home.

    Hahslinger suggested the death may have been an accident and that Ghanem had complained to his daughter late on Saturday that he was not feeling well.

    He said no suicide note has been found and there is no evidence Ghanem was under threat.

    However, Vienna police and a Libyan security source suggested to the Reuters news agency that Ghanem, 69, could have been murdered.

    L’ancien ministre du pétrole libyen se « noie », et la police « suggère » que peut-être il aurait pu être assassiné ? Ils sont drôlement complotistes, les flics viennois, dis-donc.

    • Mysterious Vienna death of Gaddafi oil boss arouses suspicion | Reuters
      http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/libya-ghanem-idUSL5E8G12ZR20120501

      Ghanem, who was also close to Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, was privy to potentially damaging information including on oil deals with Western governments and oil companies. Such deals are now under investigation by Libya’s new leaders.

      As chairman of Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) since 2006, Ghanem helped steer Libya’s oil policy and held the high-profile job of representing Libya at OPEC meetings in Vienna.

      “I think he knows more about what really went on in NOC than anyone else alive - not alive now, he’s dead. Obviously there are matters there that would not pass muster in a normal society. Where was all the money going?” said the former OPEC minister who asked not to be named.