Mustafa ben Halim, the former Prime Minister during the Senussi led constitutional monarchy period of the Kingdom of Libya, has passed away in the United Arab Emirates aged 100.
Bin Halim was the third prime minister of Libya after its independence in 1951, and was commissioned to form the government in 1954 before submitting his resignation in 1957.
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He had previously been in charge of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before he was appointed prime minister.
The centenarian authored a number of books throughout his storied lifetime, most notably the "Folded Pages of Libya's Political History" and "Libya: The Resurrection of a Nation and the Fall of a State."
According to his family members, Ben Halim passed away on Tuesday, December 4, in the United Arab Emirates.
Ben Halim was prohibited from entering his country Libya during the era of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi but had returned from exile in 2011 following the fall of the late dictator.
The late Libyan politician was born in 1921 in Alexandria, Egypt, after Italy had arrested his father. He studied engineering in Egypt and graduated in 1946, before returning to his country of origin Libya.
Ben Halim also held the lead posts at the Ministry of Communications until December 1954, and then held the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After his resignation, Libya’s King appointed him as a special advisor with the rank of a prime minister. He was then sent to Paris to take over the mission of Libya's ambassador to France from 1958 to 1960, becoming Libya’s first ambassador to Paris.
Consequently, Ben Halim moved away from political activity and turned his focus on entrepreneurship, but in the spring of 1964 King Idris summoned him to ask him to for his assistance in reforming the structures of the Libyan state, but the failure of these reforms prompted him to move away from politics once again.
The Libyan military coup of September 1, 1969 coincided with his and his family’s presence in Europe. He did not return to Libya until after the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011. He visited the city of Benghazi, where the National Transitional Council of the Libyan Revolution held an official reception for him as a former prime minister.
