Austrian investigators have ruled out foul play in the death of Shokri Ghanem, the man at the centre of Colonel Gaddafi’s oil policy in Libya.
The decision communicated by the Vienna prosecutors’ office echoes the earlier findings of the Austrian police and coroner.
69 year-old Ghanem, who was chairman of Libya’s National Oil Company at the time the Libyan revolution began, has been ruled to have died after a heart attack, which caused his fall into the Danube near his home in Vienna on 29 April, according to Austrian news agency APA.
His sudden death had prompted speculation that he was killed, either by someone in the Gaddafi regime with secrets to hide, or by a supporter of the Libyan revolution. In Libya, the NOC head also fulfilled the role of oil minister, giving Ghanem a large amount of power over Libya’s most valuable industry.
Ghanem was not trusted by the National Transitional Council or Libyan revolutionary fighters, despite his high-profile defection last year. he was succeeded at the NOC by Nuri Berruien.
After his defection Ghanem was trapped between rebel forces for whom he was a hated Gaddafi bureaucrat, and the Gaddafi family and the beneficiaries of its pyramidal system of bribes, favoritism, nepotism and corruption.
He was wanted by Libyan authorities for questioning by Prosecutor General Abdelaziz Al-Hasadi, who reportedly filed a warrant with Interpol.
