Libya has never committed terrorist act, Gaddafi says (Roundup)

Dec 11, 2007, 19:40 GMT

Paris - Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi defended his country from charges of terrorism, telling a French television station on Tuesday that Tripoli was never involved in terrorism.

'Libya never committed any terrorist act,' Gaddafi told France 2 television on the second day of his five-day visit to France.

He said his country had been unfairly condemned for the acts of individual Libyans.

'Should a state be punished for the acts of individuals?' he asked. 'When Osama bin Laden carried out the terrorist attacks on the United States, should his country have been condemned for that?'

Opposition politicians and some members of the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy have spoken out against Gaddafi's visit to France because of the Libyan leader's association with terrorism and his human rights record.

Gaddafi told France 2 that he had not been aware of the controversy swirling around his visit, saying that he was 'too busy to read the newspapers or watch television.'

He defended his human rights record by denying that there were any political prisoners in his country and that he did not allow dissent.

'I do not rule,' he said. 'The Libyan people rule democratically.'

In the interview, which was carried out Tuesday morning, Gaddafi also said that Sarkozy had never broached the issue of human rights with him, contrary to what the French president had said on Monday.

After that comment was leaked, Gaddafi was immediately contradicted by Sarkozy's chief of staff, Claude Gueant, who told journalists that he had heard the French president raise the issue twice with Gaddafi on Monday.

Deputies from the opposition French Socialist Party walked out of the National Assembly on Tuesday to protest Gaddafi's visit earlier in the day to the body.

The Socialists had been fiercely opposed to Gaddafi's visit to France. Socialist lawmakers and several deputies from the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) also boycotted Gaddafi's appearance at the residence of the president of the National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer.

During his meeting with the lawmakers at Accoyer's official office, Gaddafi praised Sarkozy's idea for a Mediterranean Union, called for a single democratic state in the Mideast and criticized what he called the 'internationalization' of the Darfur conflict.