Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, a cousin and close aide of Muammer Gaddafi, the late Libyan dictator, was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday after a siege which lasted several hours in the upmarket district of Zamalek.
Mr Gaddaf al-Dam is wanted by the Libyan authorities, who accuse him of crimes against humanity and had issued an Interpol warrant for his arrest.
He was for many year’s Mr Gaddafi’s liaison man in Egypt, though he announced he was cutting relations with the Libyan regime in February 2011 soon after the start of the Libyan revolution. It was never certain if that was a genuine defection or a ploy to allow him to continue serving the Libyan leader from outside the country.
Police surrounded Mr Gaddaf al-Dam’s home before dawn but he refused to surrender for several hours, reportedly barricading himself in a room with metal doors. Shots were fired, but it is not clear if police opened fire or if Mr Gaddaf al-Dam fired in the air to drive them away.
Apart from serving as Mr Gaddafi’s special envoy to Cairo, he was reported to have managed Libya’s investments in Egypt.
His arrest should help improve ties between the neighbours, which have a long history of ups and downs, but have been somewhat strained since the Libyan revolution. Both countries appear to be still coming to terms with the momentous changes in the region.
The presence of wanted Libyans from the Gaddafi regime in Egypt remains a sore point with Tripoli, officials and analysts say.
“The arrest will contribute to improving relations between Egypt and Libya,” said a spokesman at the Libyan embassy in Cairo. “There are still seventeen of Gaddafi’s people here in Egypt.”
The move against Mr Gaddaf al-Dam came shortly after a visit to Cairo by Ali Zidane, the Libyan prime minister.
Earlier this week, the Libyan embassy shut its doors for two days as tensions rose between the two countries over the arrests of scores of Egyptian Christians in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
Libyan militias accused them of spresading christianity and one of the detainees died while being held, his family says, after being tortured. The Libyans say he died of natural causes.
The Egyptian government protested over the arrests, and Coptic Christians held protests in front of the embassy sparking the brief closure.
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