Gaddafi son wants to surrender to ICC
ABU DHABI: Muammar Gaddafi’s fugitive son Saif al-Islam and
former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi are proposing to hand
themselves into the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a senior
Libyan military official with the National Transitional Council said on
Wednesday.
“They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,”
Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters from Libya.
Saif al-Islam is wanted by the war crimes court, as was his late
father. There is also a warrant out for Senussi.
Saif al-Islam has been on the run since Libyan forces overran his
father’s home town of Sirte at the weekend. He is thought to be
somewhere near Libya’s southern border with Niger.
Mlegta said his information came from intelligence sources who told
him that Saif al-Islam and Senussi were trying to broker a deal to
surrender to the court through a neighbouring country, which he did not
name.
They had concluded that it was not safe for them to remain in Libya,
or to go to Algeria or Niger, two countries where Gaddafi family members
are already sheltering.
“They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they are or to
go anywhere,” Mlegta said.
In any case, they said that Niger was asking for too much money for
them to stay.
Neither the ICC spokesman or the prosecutor’s office was immediately
available to comment on the report.
In June the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam and
Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity after the U.N. Security
Council referred the Libyan situation to the court in February. AFP. |