Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s second son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, is said to have been freed in Libya under an amnesty, in a move which could fuel further instability.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 44, had been released on June 9 but he has not been shown in public.
Local reports suggest Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is now in the eastern city of Bayda with relatives.
His lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, also said he had been released but would not say which city Saif al-Islam had traveled to for security reasons.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion said it was acting on a request from the “interim government”.
Image source Wikipedia
That government – based in the east of Libya – had already offered amnesty to Saif al-Islam.
However, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Tripoli, the west of Libya, where control is in the hands of the rival, UN-backed Government of National Accord.
Previous reports of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s release proved to be false.
Muammar Gaddafi’s son is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity during his father’s unsuccessful attempts to put down the rebellion.
Saif al-Islam – who was controversially granted a PhD by the London School of Economics in 2008 – was captured in November 2011 after three months on the run following the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s decades-long rule.
He was previously known for playing a key role in building relations with the West after 2000, and had been considered the reformist face of his father’s regime.
However, after the 2011 uprising, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi found himself accused of incitement to violence and murdering protesters.
Four years later, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was sentenced to death by firing squad following a trial involving 30 of Muammar Gaddafi’s close associates.
Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and eight others have been sentenced to death over war crimes linked to the 2011 revolution in Libya.
More than 30 close associates of Muammar Gaddafi were tried for suppressing peaceful protests during the uprising.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was not present in court and gave evidence via video link.
He is being held by a former rebel group from the town of Zintan that refuses to hand him over.
Former head of intelligence for the Gaddafi regime, Abdullah al-Senussi, is among those also facing death by firing squad, as is former PM Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors say that he was part of his father’s plans to “quell, by all means, the civilian demonstrations against the Gaddafi regime”.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi will be given the right to appeal against the death sentence.
The trial, which opened in 2014, has been dogged by criticism from human rights agencies, who are concerned about the fairness of Libya’s judicial system.
Eight other ex-officials received life sentences and seven were given jail terms of 12 years each, said chief investigator Sadiq al-Sur. Four were acquitted.
The defendants were accused of incitement to violence and murdering protesters during the uprising that eventually toppled Muammar Gaddafi.
Since Gaddafi’s death Libya has been plagued by instability, and currently has no single government.
Instead two warring factions each claim to run the country. An internationally recognized parliament is based in Tobruk, while Tripoli is held by rivals Libya Dawn.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been held in the mountainous town of Zintan since the end of the war, by rebels who are allied to the Tobruk-based government.
A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of President Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed today.
He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head.
The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African country, was to stop Gaddafi being interrogated about his highly suspicious links with Nicolas Sarkozy.
Other former western leaders, including ex British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were also extremely close to Gaddafi, visiting him regularly and helping to facilitate multi-million pounds business deals.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who once welcomed Gaddafi as a “brother leader” during a state visit to Paris, was said to have received millions from the Libyan despot to fund his election campaign in 2007.
The conspiracy theory will be of huge concern to Britain which sent RAF jet to bomb Libya last year with the sole intention of “saving civilian lives”.
A United Nations mandate which sanctioned the attack expressly stated that the western allies could not interfere in the internal politics of the country.
Instead the almost daily bombing runs ended with Gaddafi’s overthrow, while both French and British military ‘advisors’ were said to have assisted on the ground.
Now Mahmoud Jibril, who served as interim Prime Minister following Gaddafi’s overthrow, told Egyptian TV: “It was a foreign agent who mixed with the revolutionary brigades to kill Gaddafi.”
Diplomatic sources in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, meanwhile suggested to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra that a foreign assassin was likely to have been French.
The paper writes: “Since the beginning of NATO support for the revolution, strongly backed by the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, Gaddafi openly threatened to reveal details of his relationship with the former president of France, including the millions of dollars paid to finance his candidacy at the 2007 elections.”
One Tripoli source said: “Sarkozy had every reason to try to silence the Colonel and as quickly as possible.”
The view is supported by information gathered by investigators in Benghazi, Libya’s second city and the place where the “Arab Spring” revolution against Gaddafi started in early 2011.
Rami El Obeidi, the former head of foreign relations for the Libyan transitional council, said he knew that Gaddafi had been tracked through his satellite telecommunications system as he talked to Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian dictator.
NATO experts were able to trace the communications traffic between the two Arab leaders, and so pinpoint Gaddafi to the city of Sirte, where he was murdered on October 20 2011.
NATO jets shot up Gaddafi’s convoy, before rebels on the ground dragged Gaddafi from a drain where he was hiding and then subjected him to a violent attack which was videoed.
In another sinister twist to the story, a 22-year-old who was among the group which attacked Gaddafi and who frequently brandished the gun said to have killed him, died in Paris last Monday.
Ben Omran Shaaban was said to have been beaten up himself by Gaddafi loyalists in July, before being shot twice. He was flown to France for treatment, but died of his injuries in hospital.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who lost the presidential election in May, has continually denied receiving money from Gaddafi.
Today he is facing a number of enquiries into alleged financial irregularities.
The battles are around Tripoli (Libya) and it seems that “Operation Mermaid Dawn” has begun, according to a military commander in Benghazi, colonel Fadlallah Haroun.[googlead tip=”vertical_mic”]
The time of freedom arrived with the rebels closing to Tripoli
“The fighters in Tripoli are rising up in two places at the moment – some are in the Tajoura neighbourhood and the other is near the Matiga (international) airport,” he told Al-Jazeera.
Tajoura is the Tripoli neighborhood most openly opposed to Gaddafi. Heavy fights has been in Souq al-Jomaa, Fashloum and Tajoura, a rebel representative told the AP.
While Tripoli seems to be besieged, Abdessalam Jalloud, former prime minister, left for Italy via Tunisia on Saturday. [googlead tip=”patrat_mic” aliniat=”dreapta”]
The government official told AFP “Jalloud left Djerba airport for Italy at dawn on a Maltese plane with his family”.
“We are verifying this information,” said Maurizio Massari from the Italian Foreign Ministry.
Early on Sunday morning Muammar al Gaddafi congratulated his men for repelling an attack upon Tripoli.
[googlead tip=”lista_medie” aliniat=”stanga”]Live audio on state television, Gaddafi expressed congratulation to his supporters for repelling a rebels attack. He called the rebels “rats”.
Moammar Gadhafi said Nicolas Sarkozy wants to steal the country’s oil and the rebels were “bent on the destruction of the Libyan people”.
Gaddafi impeled his supporters to “march by the millions” and put an end to a rebellion, that he called a “masquerade”.
Meanwhile, the rebels said the Gaddafi’s regime is heading to an end.
“The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up,” said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), in the eastern city of Benghazi.
On Sunday an official in the rebel NTC said that operations in Tripoli were co-ordinated between opponents of Gaddafi in the city and the rebels in the east.
“There is co-ordination with the rebels in Tripoli. This was a pre-set plan. They’ve been preparing for a while. There’s co-ordination with the rebels approaching from the east, west and south,” he said.
Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said NATO warplanes were sending air strikes to distract Gaddafi’s forces.
“The next hours are crucial. Many of their (pro-Gaddafi) brigades and their commanders have fled.” he said
Apparentely, there is just a matter of time for the rebels until they will take Tripoli.
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