Libyans Consider Recovery of Property Confiscated by Qaddafi On March 30, 2012, a group of cousins broke down the door of a family member's apartment that had been seized and occupied by Qaddafi supporters. TRIPOLI, Libya - Ibrahim Tunali has never forgotten the day in 1981 when government soldiers took over his luggage shop and gave it to a loyalist of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, one of countless expropriations in that era. So after Colonel Qaddafi was killed in October, Mr. Tunali marched to his old shop with a posse of armed relatives, he said, and told the man renting it, "If you're not gone in two days, we'll slaughter you right here." The man fled within hours. Tens of thousands of other Libyans are now tempted to do the same, said Mr. Tunali, a stout 60-year-old with a cheerful, pugnacious manner, as he stood in front of his reclaimed shop. The original owners of expropriated property have not forgotten what they lost, he added, and are growing more impatient every day. One of Colonel Qaddafi's most toxic legacies is the vast land-redistribution policy he started in the late 1970s, which now threatens to ignite a patchwork of bitter property disputes in a well-armed population. Many owners have held deep grudges for more than 30 years, and they brandish deeds dating to the Italian occupation of the early 20th century or even the Ottoman era. Some have returned to Libya to make their claims after years of living abroad. But the current occupants often have nowhere to go, and some have their own documents. Libya's main property records office burned down in the early 1980s, and many Libyans say they believe this was a deliberate effort by Colonel Qaddafi to sow confusion about ownership. Other countries have dealt with the aftermath of large-scale state property seizures - notably after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. But Libya's challenges are magnified by weak transitional authorities, the absence of a working court system and a flood of weapons in civilian hands. "Something has to be done, but we can't just come and throw these people out into the street," said Mustafa Abushagur, the first deputy prime minister in Libya's transitional government. We're asking people to be patient. I lost property, too. Many Libyans point to Colonel Qaddafi's expropriation laws, which have yet to be nullified, as one of his signal injustices. In 1978, he issued Law No. 4, which declared the principle of "the house to its resident." This meant that Libyans could own only the house they lived in; all other property would go to the state, which in practice often meant it was given to members of the notorious Revolutionary Committees. Similar laws robbed Libyans of shops, office buildings, factories and agricultural land. The original owners often protested and were jailed, or filed legal claims contesting the takeovers. Sometimes the courts supported their claims but could do nothing to enforce the judgments. Many original claimants are organizing and urging the transitional government to act now - before national elections scheduled for June 21 - because they fear that the issue could become politicized and spur many frustrated owners to take the law into their own hands. "We are trying to put the brakes on people so they don't use force," said Shaker Dakhil, who founded a national owners" group of more than 3,000 members. But they are losing patience. These laws need to be nullified. Mr. Dakhil, a genial man who spent 34 years working as an engineer in the United States, said he believed it would take at least $15 billion to compensate Libyans whose property was taken under Colonel Qaddafi. He said he had spent years researching property records and had seen how quickly these disputes can turn violent. After the Qaddafi government collapsed last year, Mr. Dakhil and his relatives reclaimed a large house and parcel of land that had been confiscated three decades earlier. Then, one morning in March, he arrived at the building to discover the wife of a well-known Qaddafi loyalist sitting inside with a dozen armed militia members from Zintan. She had her own documents, and apparently she had persuaded the militiamen that the property was hers, Mr. Dakhil said.