UAE national arrested in Tripoli on suspicion of spying

A citizen of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been arrested in Tripoli on suspicion of spying on the Libyan authorities in charge of the capital, the local office of the prosecutor general said on Wednesday.

The suspect was detained on 5 November and is being questioned, Siddiq al-Sour, the head of the prosecutor general's office in Tripoli, told AFP.

Sour said the suspect, Yousif Saqir Wilayatim, was arrested by the Libyan intelligence agency in al-Mahari Hotel, according to the Libya Observer.

"Wilayati is involved in espionage for a foreign country and he has many contacts with Libyan citizens," Sour told reporters.

He said the UAE national is connected to the police in Dubai and was on his third visit to Libya since 2012.

"He claims to be a businessman and to have no ties to the Dubai police but intelligence agents found pictures on his phone of sensitive locations in Tripoli, including a video of the Turkish embassy."

But Dubai police chief Khamis al-Muzainah said in a late Wednesday statement on his force's official Twitter account that the charges against the man were "false and far away from truth".

"The arrested suspect's relation with the police had ended five years ago (in 2010) when he was dismissed from military service for his involvement in a moral case," said Muzainah. 

UAE authorities reportedly attempted to negotiate through a third party a $10mn bribe for Wilayatim’s release, but the Tripoli government refused. 

Libya has had two rival governments since August 2014, when rebel groups backed by Islamists overran Tripoli, forcing the internationally recognised government to relocate to Tobruk, in the far east of the country.

The authorities in Tripoli accuse the UAE of supporting the internationally recognised government in Libya.

Last week, Middle East Eye revealed that the former UN envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, was secretly working with the UAE to support the Tobruk-based government while mediating the country's conflict. 

It also emerged last week that Leon took a high-paying job working for the UAE government which is to begin when his UN work ends. Leon has denied any suggestion of bias.

The oil-rich North African country descended into chaos after the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in its 2011 revolution.