Qaddafi in Jersey? Fugheddaboudit!

City officials in Englewood, New Jersey, are not happy about the possiility that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's might pitch his tent there (literally) when he attends the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September:

Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said it would be offensive for Gaddafi even to be allowed a U.S. visa after Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was given a "hero's welcome" on his return to Libya last week.

Megrahi was freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

An official at the Libyan mission to the United Nations confirmed Gaddafi planned to attend the General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City but said there was no information about where he would stay. Gaddafi is scheduled to address the assembly on September 23.

Wildes said the Libyan embassy owns a 4.5-acre (1.8-hectare) property in Englewood next door to a Jewish school and a rabbi.

"People are infuriated that a financier of terrorism, who in recent days gave a hero's welcome to a convicted terrorist, would be welcomed to our shores, let alone reside in our city," Wildes told Reuters.

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