Saif al-Islam, the fugitive son of colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been captured, Libya’s interim justice minister says.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 39, is said to have been seized by fighters near the southern town of Obari and flown to Zintan in the north.
Muammar Gaddafi’s son is the last key member of the Gaddafi family to be captured or killed.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity during the uprising against his father.
A picture apparently showing Saif al-Islam Gaddafi after his capture has appeared on the page of a Facebook group based in the Libyan town of Sabha.
A picture apparently showing Saif al-Islam Gaddafi after his capture has appeared on the page of a Facebook group based in the Libyan town of Sabha
A militia force allied to the National Transitional Council (NTC) said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had been captured in Obari, near Sabha, in the south-west, and was taken to their base in Zintan in the north.
A commander of the Zintan militia, Wisam Dughaly, said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had been captured along with several aides, as they tried to smuggle him out to neighbouring Niger.
Wisam Dughaly said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was not hurt, though the picture on Facebook showed his right thumb and two fingers bandaged.
The NTC’s Justice Minister Mohammed al-Allagui confirmed the capture and said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi would be transferred to the capital, Tripoli, soon.
The ICC in The Hague says it has been officially notified of the arrest.
An ICC spokesman, Fadi el-Abdallah, told the BBC that Libya had a legal obligation to hand over Saif al-Islam Gaddafi – who is wanted on charges of crimes against humanity – to the court.
However, ICC spokesman added that the final decision on where any trial would take place was up to the ICC judges after consultations with the Libyan authorities.
“The good news is that Saif al-Islam is arrested, he is alive, and now he will face justice,” ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said.
The reported capture leaves Muammar Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief, Abdallah Senoussi, as the only Libyan ICC suspect still at large.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had been on the run since NTC forces took the capital, Tripoli, in August.
Muammar Gaddafi himself was killed on 20 October after being captured during the final battle for his hometown, Sirte.
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“Operation Mermaid Dawn” has succeeded, after six months of civil war, the events concluded in just a few hours, the rebels have reached the centre of the Libya’s capital, Tripoli.
Libya in the hands of the Libyan people
[googlead tip=”patrat_mediu” aliniat=”stanga”]Muammar Gaddafi’s defenders have fled, and thousands of civilians went out to cheer the the rebels while they were advancing into the city. The people gathered in the Green Square shouting “We’re free” and they shoot at a poster of Gaddafi, reported Al Jazeera.
There was not much resistance from Gaddafi’s supporters while the were approaching the Libyan capital.
“People are worried about sleeper cells but cleaning up operations are under way to make sure there are no snipers in the buildings nearby. People are confident that the government has fallen and they are in control”said Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera’s correspondent.
The capital has surrendered along with the military unit that was protecting Muammar al Gaddafi, said a rebel official (AP).
There was no co-ordination between NATO air forces and the rebels forces on the ground, said Oana Lungescu, NATO’s chief spokeswoman.
“What we’re seeing tonight is the regime crumbling,” Oana Lungescu told AFP.
There is no information on Libya‘s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi, but two of his sons are in the rebels’ custody.
In his latest message, Gaddaffi said Tripoli would be turned into another Baghdad.
“How come you allow Tripoli, the capital, to be under occupation once again?” he said. “The traitors are paving the way for the occupation forces to be deployed in Tripoli.”
Mohammed, Gaddafi’s eldest son, has surrendered and told Al Jazeera that the revolution was caused by a lack of wisdom.
“I’ve never been a government or security official, however I can tell you the absence of wisdom and foresight is what brought us to here today. Our differences could have been solved easily,” he said.
His house was attacked while he was speaking, but head of the NTC told Al Jazeera that Mohammed was not hurt.
[googlead tip=”patrat_mic” aliniat=”dreapta”]”He will remain in his house, and I guarantee his safety.” Mustafa Abdel Jalil said.
Saif al-Islam, as Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, confirmed was arrested and probably he will be transferred to The Hague, if the NTC agrees.
Barak Obama said Gaddafi must “acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all”.
“The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people.” He stated and said the US would “continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected.”
There were rumors about two South African air force planes that were seen at Tripoli airport, but Mahmoud Shamam, of the NTC told Al Jazeera, that the planes could not take Gaddafi since the airport was under rebel control.
“I have no knowledge of any South African planes in Tripoli … but Nato should know, since they control the airport and no plane can land without their permission,” said Mohammed Dangor, South Africa’s ambassador to Libya.
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Following hijacking the aircraft and also requesting ransom two hundred thousand from the Federal bureau of investigation, DB Cooper made a ambitious evade through the use of parachute.
Forty years afterwards, brand new proof suggests the authorities may finally be hot on the path of America’s most mysterious fugitive. Nevertheless what are the latest facts?
DB Cooper
[googlead tip=”lista_mare” aliniat=”dreapta”] Around the night before Thanksgiving of 1971, a guy who named himself Dan Cooper (a press reporter being employed by among the many wire assistance misheard the name of the hijacker, and ever since then he has been referred to as D.B. Cooper, as an alternative to Dan) dressed in a suit and raincoat, wandered up to the Northwest Orient desk at Portland’s airport and spent $20 on a one-way ticket to Seattle.
On the flight, he used some dark sunglasses, purchased a whiskey, lit up a cigarette and coolly given the stewardess some text. In capital letters, DB Cooper’s note read:
I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED.
Just what happened next would give Cooper the place in the pantheon of US folk heroes. [googlead tip=”patrat_mare”]
D.B. Cooper requested the stewardess to inform the next require to the plane’s captain: he wanted $200,000 and a number of parachutes, and in return, he’d allow 36 people to leave the aircraft as soon as the plane arrived in Seattle. The FBI, swiftly called by ground control, organized the swap, and when the airplane was sky-bound again, with only the pilot, co-pilot, one stewardess and DB Cooper on board.
The hijacker’s directions were to head for Mexico, keeping an altitude under 10,000 feet. Then, somewhere above the lower Cascade mountains, 25 miles north west of Portland, D.B. Cooper launched the plane’s aft stairs, stepped out, and, with one of the parachutes strapped to his back, jumped into the raining, cold November night and has been never seen or observed from again. [googlead tip=”vertical_mare” aliniat=”dreapta”]
By the moment military helicopters were scrambled, on November 24th 1971, to search the land north of Portland for a six-foot-tall white man weighing one hundred seventy to a hundred seventy five pounds, “DB” Cooper was long gone – most probably possibly dead or packing away his parachute and trudging through mud and rain to make his escape.
Over the previous 40 years since that chilly night, there have been more than 1,000 DB Cooper suspects, a number of deathbed confessions, a film (starring Robert Duvall), as well as well more than a dozen books. As one person told legendary Cooper tracker Alex Hannaford, DB Cooper is the “Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest.”
