Libya's health minister and other officials have been arrested in connection with a corruption case involving the import of cancer treatment drugs from Iraq, authorities said on Wednesday.
Ramadan Boujenah and four senior health ministry officials from the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) were detained after "violating regulations on importing cancer treatment medicine from a pharmaceutical factory in Iraq", the prosecutor general's office said.
Libya has been mired in unrest since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
It remains split between the UN-recognised GNU led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah and a rival administration in the east backed by military leader Khalifa Haftar.
Widespread outrage
The prosecutor's office said Boujenah and the other suspects "breached rules related to the acquisition of this type of medicine and ignored required legal, financial, and technical procedures in managing public contracts."
The case has sparked widespread outrage in Libya, where state-subsidised cancer treatment is scarce and alternatives in private clinics remain unaffordable for most.
Public hospitals and specialised treatment centres generally rely on imports from foreign pharmaceutical companies.
Earlier this month, Dbeibah's office suspended Boujenah and the four officials after a probe into the alleged contract violations.
Corruption probe
Mohamad Al-Ghoj, formerly the ministry's undersecretary, has been appointed acting health minister.
Boujenah took over the health portfolio in January 2022 after his predecessor, Ali Zenati, was dismissed following a separate corruption probe over similar contractual violations.
Boujenah's is the fourth case of a minister in Dbeibah's administration being implicated in corruption.
The education minister was recently sentenced to three years in prison in a scandal involving a shortage of state-funded schoolbooks.
And in late 2021, the culture minister was suspended amid allegations of corruption and embezzlement.
