TRIPOLI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 26,000 members of Libya's Supreme Security Committee (SSC) have applied to join the police, Interior Minister Ashour Shwail said Wednesday.
The interior ministry has been working to integrate SSC members to the national police through a merger program launched at the end of last year, Shwail told a press conference. Police headquarters are under maintenance.
Shwail, a former professor of law, was tasked with collecting weapons, enhancing security and stability, and rehabilitating the national security forces when he took office in December.
After Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow in 2011, Libya's transitional authorities set up the SSC composed of militiamen who would try to curb others defying law enforcement in the belief it remained under control of the former strongman's loyalists.
But a number of members of the committee, funded by the Interior Ministry and better armed and powerful than the official police, have been accused of kidnappings and intimidation, complicating the lawlessness plaguing the country.
Homecoming interrogations trouble young Chinese
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