Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi is cornered and his defeat is “only a matter of time”, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Tuesday.
Clegg insisted the defiant appearance of Gaddafi’s son and presumed successor Saif al-Islam in Tripoli, a day after rebels said they had captured him, was “not the sign of some great comeback for the Gaddafi regime”.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) “never” had confirmation of the arrest of Saif al-Islam, one of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi’s sons said to have been captured by the rebels, a spokesman said Tuesday.
“After yesterday’s announcement, we communicated with the National Transitional Council to have confirmation of the arrest, but we never received it from the NTC,” the ICC’s spokesman Fadi el-Abdallah said — after Saif al-Islam spoke to journalists to refute the “lies” about his capture.
The chairman of the NTC Mustafa Abdel Jalil told Al-Jazeera television overnight he had “information that Saif al-Islam has been captured”.
“He is being kept in a secure place under close guard until he is handed over to the judiciary,” Abdel Jalil said, without giving a date or place for his reported capture.
The ICC prosecutor in the Hague Luis Moreno-Ocampo told AFP later “I have received confidential information stating he has been arrested.”
But in a dramatic twist, Saif el-Islam appeared in person to journalists in a vacant lot outside his father’s Bab al-Azizya compound in Tripoli in the very early hours of Tuesday to demonstrate that he had not been taken and
“He is not roaming freely through Tripoli. He and the remaining pro-Gaddafi forces are now cornered, they are making their last stand, and it’s only a matter of time before they are finally defeated,” Clegg added while commenting on the situation. “About that we are very confident indeed.”
Clegg said there would continue to be “frustrations and setbacks” in the battle for control of Tripoli, but despite fierce fighting he insisted that rebel forces still controlled much of the capital.
“Our assessment is that Free Libya forces now control much, but not all, of Tripoli,” he said.
