THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court yesterday rejected Tripoli’s bid to halt its prosecution of slain leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Seif Al Islam (pictured), for crimes against humanity committed while trying to put down Libya’s bloody revolt in 2011.
“The chamber concluded that it has not been sufficiently demonstrated that (Libya’s) domestic investigation (covers) the same case that is before the court,” the Hague-based ICC said in a statement on the long-awaited decision.
The ICC, which was mandated by the UN Security Council to investigate the Libyan conflict, issued an arrest warrant for Seif Al Islam, 40, his strongman father Muammar Gaddafi, now deceased, and his spy chief Abdullah Senussi in June 2011. The court, however, has clashed with Tripoli over where he should be tried after he was captured by anti-Gaddafi fighters near the western town of Zintan in November 2011, where he is currently still being held.
Libya challenged the ICC’s bid in May last year, saying the North African country had the means at its disposal to put him in the dock in a local court. The ICC then also postponed its request for Libya to surrender Seif Al Islam until judges ruled on the challenge.
Tripoli has made progress in its own investigations into Seif Al Islam’s role during Libya’s revolt, sparked in mid-February 2011, including the mobilisation of militias, military forces and equipment and the arrests of journalists and activists, the judges said yesterday. But after looking at Libya’s challenge, they concluded that “taken as a whole... evidence did not allow the chamber to discern the actual contours of the national case against Gaddafi such that Libya could said to have substantiated.”AFP
