Libya will not hand over Moamer Gaddafi’s most prominent son Seif al-Islam to the International Criminal Court for trial, a minister said Tuesday as the war crimes court’s prosecutor visited the country. “In a nutshell, we are not going to hand him over,” interim justice minister Mohammed al-Allagui said when asked about Seif, who was captured in Libya’s far-flung Saharan south on Saturday after three months on the run. Trying Seif “is the special responsibility of the Libyan courts. It is the prerogative of the Libyan courts. It is a question of our sovereignty over our territory and our citizens,” said Allagui.
His comments came as the ICC’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo was in Tripoli for talks on jurisdiction in the cases of Seif and Gaddafi’s spymaster Abdullah al-Senussi, both of whom are wanted by the court on charges of crimes against humanity. Allagui said the prosecutor was very welcome to have a meeting with Seif al-Islam in custody to allay concerns that he might be subjected to ill-treatment after his father was killed when he was captured last month. “If he (Moreno-Ocampo) asked for one, he would be most welcome,” the minister said. But asked whether he expected to meet Seif during his current visit, the ICC prosecutor said: “No.” After talks in Libya’s second-largest city Benghazi on Tuesday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said she had received assurances there would be no retaliatory mistreatment of Gaddafi’s longtime heir apparent. “The officials with whom I met assured me that Seif al-Islam was being held safely in a secure location, that he was being well treated and humanely treated… and that he would be tried and treated in a fair fashion and held accountable according to international standards,” she said.
“So that was a clear-cut commitment that was made by the senior officials with whom I met,” the US ambassador added. Asked whether Washington had put any pressure on Libya’s new authorities to hand Seif over for trial by the ICC in The Hague, Rice said: “We first of all think that these are issues for the Libyan people to determine.” Ahead of his trip, Moreno-Ocampo had said: “The issue of where the trials will be held has to be resolved through consultations with the court. “In the end, the ICC judges will decide, there are legal standards which will have to be adhered to,” he added. Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council insists that Seif be brought to Tripoli where he could face the death penalty.
The ICC, which received the green light to probe crimes in Libya through a UN Security Council resolution on February 26, can only prosecute perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity if a country itself is unwilling or unable to do so. Moreno-Ocampo’s office said on Tuesday that it was continuing its investigation in Libya, which is nevertheless not a signatory to the ICC.
