(JTA) — The leader of the Libyan Jewish community in Britain said he has been invited to run for political office in post-Muammar Gadhafi Libya.
Raphael Luzon told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, a day after the fall of the Libyan capital to rebel forces, that opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil had invited him to return to Libya and run in free elections. Jalil is a former Libyan justice minister and now chairman of the rebel council in Benghazi.
Luzon told the newspaper that he was invited to take part in the elections "because they would like it to be open to all people, including women and Jews.”
Luzon, whose family fled Libya in 1967, met Gadhafi twice in recent years. He said he would await further developments in the country before making a decision.
Reconstruction of the war-torn country and the restitution of Jewish assets confiscated by the Libyan regime would top his political agenda if he ran, Luzon told the Jerusalem Post.
Fighting continued in the Libyan capital on Tuesday, centered around Gadhafi’s fortified compound.
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