Former rebels who helped to topple Libya’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi and a human rights lawyer whose arrest sparked the uprising, were handed key posts in a new government unveiled yesterday.

Interim Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib announced the new Cabinet line-up at a news conference, just a month after the capture and lynching of Col. Gaddafi who ruled the country with an iron-fist for 42 years.

“I can reassure everyone... all of Libya is (represented) in the new government,” Mr Kib told reporters of the line-up which had originally been due to be announced on Sunday. The delay in its unveiling was apparently caused by the arrest on Saturday of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the prominent son and onetime heir-apparent of the slain dictator.

Osama Juili, commander of the Zintan fighters who arrested Mr Gaddafi, got the Defence Ministry, while the interior ministry went to Fawzi Abdelali from the former rebel town of Misruata, whose fighters captured Col. Gaddafi in October.

Mr Kib chose Ashur bin Khayyal, Libya’s envoy to Canada under the Gaddafi regime who joined the opposition in the 1990s, to head the foreign ministry, while Abdelrahman bin Yazza – a former official at Italy’s energy major ENI – becomes interim oil and gas minister.

Lawyer Fethi Tarbel, whose brief arrest on February 15 was the spark that lit the popular uprising against Col. Gaddafi regime in the eastern city of Benghazi, was named minister of youth and sport.

Mr Kib will head a 24-member government which includes such portfolios as the ministry of martyrs, wounded and missing people, and a ministry of civilian society.

“The National Transitional Council gave the new government its vote of confidence,” NTC vice chairman and official spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said.

The NTC chose Mr Kib, a little-known university professor from Tripoli, to form an interim government on October 31.

Libya’s new transitional government

Prime Minister: Abdel Rahim al-Kib
Deputy Prime Minister: Mustafa Abu Shagur
Deputy Prime Minister: Omar Abdullah Abdelkarim

List of ministers

Defence: Osama Juili
Interior: Fawzi Abdelali
Foreign affairs and international cooperation: Ashur bin Khayyal
Finance: Hassan Zoglem
Planning: Issa al-Touijer
Economy: Tahar Sharkass
Oil and gas: Abdelrahman bin Yazza
Grants and religious affairs: Hamza Bufares
Martyrs, wounded and missing people: Abdennasser Jibril Hamed
Social affairs: Mabruka al-Sherif Jibril
Education: Suleyman Ali al-Saheli
Labour: Mustafa al-Rojbani
Justice: Ali H’mida Ashur
Health: Fatma al-Hamrush
Local government: Mohammed al-Hrari
Housing and public services: Ibrahim al-Sgutri
Transport and communication: Yussef al-Whishi
Telecommunications: Anwar al-Fituri
Agriculture: Suleyman Abdelhamid Bukharruba
Industry: Mohammed Mahmoud al-Ftissi
Higher education and scientific research: Naim al-Gharyani
Youth and sport: Fethi Tarbel
Culture and civil society: Abdelrahman Habil
Electricity and renewable energy: Awadh Brayek Ibrahim

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