Top Libya body adopts law barring Gaddafi-era officials

Libya's General National Congress, under pressure from armed militias, today voted through a controversial law to exclude former regime officials from government posts.
Gunmen who had surrounded the foreign and justice ministries to press for officials from the regime of the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi to be sacked from top government jobs lifted the siege when state television broke the news.
The GNC, Libya's top political body, adopted the text with 115 votes in favour of the key article in the controversial law barring Gaddafi-era officials from having any political role in Libya.
The gunmen, many of them former rebels who helped topple Gaddafi's regime in 2011, had encircled the foreign ministry for a week and the justice ministry since Tuesday to pressure the national assembly to pass the law.