The Playboy Son of Gaddafi Covered in Sand

KOMPAS.com - The playboy son of Colonel Gaddafi could face a firing squad after the Libyan government yesterday refused to hand him over to the International Criminal Court.

Officials in Tripoli insisted that British-educated Saif Al-Islam, who was captured on Saturday, would stand trial in his own country for crimes against the Libyan people. The charge carries the death penalty.

The 39-year-old used to wear fashionable western clothes and designer stubble when he threw wild parties in the South of France and at his £10million mansion in Hampstead, North London.

But when rebel fighters tracked him down in the southern Libyan desert, trying to flee over the border to Niger, he wore a bushy black beard, turban and flowing robes.

Saif – who recently said he would fight to his death – claimed he was a humble camel herder and gave his name as the Arabic equivalent of John Smith.

He then leapt from his car and made a farcical attempt to hide behind it before diving under a bundle of clothes, covering it with sand. He also rubbed sand on his face and head in an apparent attempt to disguise himself.

‘But when we told him to surrender he did,’ said Ajami Ali al-Atari, the commander of the operation.

The rebels flew him to the town of Zintan, south of Tripoli, where a mob of locals surrounded the Libyan air force transport plane. A tape recording picked up some of the conversations on the tarmac between Saif and his captors.

‘I knew it. I knew that there would be a big crowd,’ he was heard saying as he peeped out through curtains before recoiling in apparent terror. He added: ‘I’m staying here. They’ll empty their guns into me the second I go out there.’

But when men in the plane lit up cigarettes, he told them they were putting his life at risk. ‘The plane’s sealed and we’ll suffocate,’ he said. ‘We’re going to choke to death.’ When one of his guards suggested opening the door for ventilation, he appeared to think the armed crowd banging on the walls posed a more immediate threat to his health. ‘I don’t need fresh air, man,’ he said.

Amnesty International called for Saif to be urgently handed over to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands amid fears that he could suffer the same fate as his father, who was killed soon after he was caught by rebels last month.

But Libya has no agreement with the International Criminal Court, and its justice minister Mohammed

Al Alagy said: ‘We are ready to prosecute. We have adopted enough legal and judicial procedures to ensure a fair trial for him.’

Saif and four bodyguards were stopped by small unit of rebel fighters in pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns following a tip-off that he was planning to escape over the border.

His fingers were wrapped in bandages and his legs covered with a blanket after apparently being injured in a Nato air raid a month ago. He is thought to have been hiding in the southern desert since last month fleeing his tribal stronghold of Bani Walid, near the capital, Tripoli.

Abdul al-Salaam al-Wahissi, a Zintan fighter involved in the operation said: ‘He looked tired. He had been lost in the desert for many days. I think he lost his guide.’

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has said that he will travel to Libya today for talks with the ruling National Transitional Council on where Saif’s trial will take place. He said that while national governments have the first right to try their own citizens for war crimes, his primary goal was to ensure a fair trial.

Human Rights Watch warned that the killing of Colonel Gaddafi after being captured was a ‘particular cause for concern’ if Saif is kept in Libya.

But Libya’s information minister Mahmoud Shammam said: ‘The ICC is just a secondary court, and the people of Libya will not allow Saif to be tried outside.’

Saif is expected to be charged with crimes including instigating others to kill and misusing public funds. The transitional government has yet to rule on its preferred form of execution for criminals.

Colonel Gaddafi notoriously hanged hundreds of political opponents, sometimes in public executions broadcast on TV.

But it is believed the firing squad may become the method of execution for the new state. Only three weeks ago Saif had vowed to avenge his father’s death, declaring defiantly: ‘I am alive and free and willing to fight to the end.’

Last night he remained in a safe house in Zintan, where the townsfolk vowed to keep him alive until he can face a judge in the capital.

Tripoli’s new rulers said last night that ex-Intelligence Minister Abdullah al-Senoussi had been captured alive by revolutionary fighters, not far from where Saif was seized.

Fighters tracking al-Senoussi for two days caught up with him at his sister’s house in Deerat al-Shati, about 40 miles south of the desert city of Sebha.

Al-Senoussi, Colonel Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, was one of six Libyans convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison in France for the 1989 bombing of a French passenger jet over Niger which killed all 170 on board.