Mustafa Abdul Jalil
De facto leader of Libya from 2011 to 2012
Mustafa Abdul Jalil (Arabic: مصطفى عبد الجليل; also transcribed Abdul-Jelil, Abd-al-Jalil, Abdel-Jalil, Abdeljalil or Abdu Al Jeleil; born 6 November 1952) is a Libyan politician who was the Chairman of the National Transitional Council from 5 March 2011 until its dissolution on 8 August 2012. This position meant he was de facto head of state during a transitional period after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's government in the Libyan Civil War, and until the handover of power to the General National Congress.
Before the war, Abdul Jalil served as Muammar Gaddafi's Minister of Justice (officially, the Secretary of the General People's Committee of Justice). He was noted in some news media for his stance against various human rights violations in Libya, although Diana West accused him of intransigence during the Bulgarian nurses affair.
Career
After graduating from the department of Shari'a and Law in the Arabic Language and Islamic Studies faculty of University of Libya in 1975, Abdul Jalil was initially "assistant to the Secretary of the Public Prosecutor" in Beida, before being appointed a judge in 1978.
Abdul Jalil was a judge "known for ruling consistently against the regime," before becoming justice minister in 2007. In January 2010 he attempted to resign on national television over the government's failure to release political prisoners. His resignation was rejected. He resigned on 21 February 2011 after being sent to Benghazi to negotiate the release of hostages taken by rebels, being the first senior official to do so.
In classified US diplomatic cables leaked by the website WikiLeaks, he is described as open and cooperative.
“Mustafa Abdul Jalil” enters the record as de facto leader of Libya from 2011 to 2012. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mustafa, Abdul and Jalil can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q274769. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2011, 2012 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mustafa Abdul Jalil” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.