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Libyan Central Bank Chief surfaces

LONDON, March 9 (KUNA) -- The whereabouts of the governor of Libya's central bank, the man who holds the key to the Gaddafi regime's finances, have confounded officials, diplomats and bankers who have been desperate to find him over the past two weeks, it was reported here Wednesday.
Farhat Omar Bengdara has spent much of the time since the outbreak of the uprising against Muammer Gaddafi outside Libya but it is has been unclear whether he supported the regime or was co-operating with the opposition, the Financial Times newspaper said.
Late on Tuesday night the governor finally surfaced, in an e-mail sent to the Financial Times, he said he had been informed that the secretary of planning and finance had been appointed as acting governor and confirmed that he had been in Istanbul.
But he insisted that he was doing his job, and that it was easier to conduct business abroad than in Tripoli.
The statement, however, did not shed much light on the governor's loyalties, the paper noted.
He said he would resign after the crisis but also that he had been working hard over the past two weeks to explain the central bank's position and clarify the effect of the international effort to freeze Libyan assets.
Blocking central bank funds could lead to a humanitarian disaster, he said, including a reminder that he had always operated in line with regulations and had modernised the Libyan banking system.
Bankers and opposition figures have been scrambling to decipher Bengdara's loyalties, as they assume he is one of few officials with authority to shift funds at a time when sanctions are tightening the squeeze on Col Gaddafi and his family.
UniCredit, in which Libya has a stake, have been in contact with the governor, who is a vice-chairman at the Italian bank, after spending a week trying to track him down.
A European diplomat said he heard the governor had been in Switzerland and had abandoned the regime.
At the central bank in Tripoli, security guards and receptionists said three days running this week that the governor was away.
On Tuesday officials said he was in town but out of the office.
The 45-year-old Bengdara, who holds a master's degree in economics from Sheffield university in the UK, comes from a family in Benghazi, a city in the east of Libya that has been the centre of the rebellion.
But Libyan opposition figures abroad say he is too closely tied to the regime and recall that in his younger years he was a member of the revolutionary committees charged with quashing dissent.
The fate of Bengdara has attracted much attention but bankers say he was already on his way out before the crisis.
Since taking over at the central bank in 2006 (he was deputy governor before that), he was considered something of a reformer, opening up the banking sector to foreign capital, tightening supervision and setting up a clearing system.
But he was seen to have won his job thanks to Seif-al-Islam, the Gaddafi son and apparent heir who had championed a more liberal economic system. (end) he.asa KUNA 091245 Mar 11NNNN