CIA asset , Mahdi al-Harati

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Friday November 11, 2011 17:59 by joe

Need for statement from IAWM and IPSC

Mahdi al-Harati , a Dublin-based Libyan who has been prominent at IAWM and ISPC demos for a number of years ,was outed as a CIA asset by the Sunday World last week after his home was robbed and a large quantity of CIA cash stolen from a cupboard there.

Neither the SWP , the IAWM nor the IPSC  have to date released statements about what they know of the role of the Irish /Libyan ,Mahdi al-Harati ,who led the rebel ground forces  that captured Tripoli for NATO  in August .A front page story in the Sunday World last weekend about a robbery  at Mahdi al-Harati’s Dublin home revealed that the so-called rebel Libyan commander had been in receipt of hundreds of thousands of euros from the CIA .

http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/index.php

“[After the robbery], astonished officers made contact with Mahdi al-Harati who told them that he had travelled to France, the United States and Qatar the previous month and that representatives of an American intelligence agency had given him a significant amount of money to help in the efforts to defeat Gaddafi. He said he left two envelopes with his wife in case he was killed and took the rest of the cash with him when he went back to Libya.”

Mahdi al-Harati has been  well-known in antiwar and Palestine solidarity circles in Dublin over the years . He had been a passenger in the Challenger 1 ship last year when it attempted to break the seige of Gaza as part of the Free Gaza  Flotilla . He was the last Irish member of the flotilla to arrive home after the Israeli raid and was given a hero’s reception at Dublin Airport by members of the IPSC and the IAWM . According to an indymedia comment from last year written by Kev from the IPSC :

“Freda Hughes of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomed his safe return and saluted his bravery: "Al Mahdi, like all of the Freedom Flotilla participants, is deserving of our praise for his courage in attempting to break the illegal siege of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged people there. We are all relieved that he is safely back in Ireland. We hope that his family, who we know were extremely worried about his health, can rest easy now and celebrate his return.."’

The IPSC and IAWM need to state whether or not they have received any funding from Al Mahdi, Was the  support that the IAWM gave to the Libyan Transitional Council during the course of the war linked to the  influence of Mahdi al-Harati or his supporters in the anti-war group ?