Saif al-Islam Gaddafi 'to be tried in remote mountaintop town'

The Libyan commander holding Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan has declared he will stage a trial of the dictator’s son in the remote mountaintop town where he has been held since his capture last November.The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been demanding the extradition of Col Muammar Gaddafi’s presumed heir to The Hague to face war crimes charges for giving orders to kill unarmed civilians during the uprising against the old regime. Libya’s lawyers are appealing for the right to stage Saif’s trial in a Libyan courthouse.

• However, Osama al-Jueili, Libya’s defence minister and head of the militia brigade which is holding Saif in the town of Zintan, added to confusion over his fate by insisting his prisoner would face trial in his town, not the capital Tripoli.

• “I think he will be tried in Zintan,” Mr Jueili told the press . “Zintan is part of Libya, the country where the crimes he is charged with were committed. In the history of war crimes it is not necessary to hold these courts in the capital.”

• The comments are bound to exacerbate fears that Saif will face victor’s justice at the hands of his captors and inevitable execution.

• Despite serving as defence minister in Libya’s transitional government, Mr Jueili poured scorn on suggestions secure facilities could be constructed in Tripoli to conduct a trial.

• “Libya is facing a very dangerous period where the enemies of stability are unknown but are in front of us. In this situation we submit Saif to the prosecutor but we also insist on his security.”

• Zintan’s leadership has established an elaborate mechanism to protect the 39-year Saif Al Islam from potential attack.

• The only outsiders to see Saif must be granted permission by Abdelaziz al-Hasadi, Libya’s prosecutor general. However, access is so zealously guarded that Saif has not met with a defence lawyer.

• Only the ICC, Red Cross, his doctors and a human rights campaigner have successfully secured meetings with the prisoner.
• A small team of guards, including fighters who captured Saif and local men, has overseen his detention since he was taken to the town last November.

• The town – which has a population of 16,000 – briefly boasted a hotel last August when it was the main staging post for attacks on the fraying coastal defences of Gaddafi’s regime but even that has reverted to its former use as a private medical clinic.

• The rudimentary facilities of the town would not bear the strains of a trial that would attract dozens of legal observers and an international media onslaught.

• But local officials are keen to stress its advantages over the chaos of the capital.

• “We think we have proved to the world that Saif is safe in our hands and this is very important for Libya,” said a spokesman for Zintan’s government. “Saif must be tried in Libya, not killed. We in Zintan are showing the world that Libya is a democracy.”

• Commanders dismiss the possibility that remnants of the Gaddafi regime could stage a rescue mission. There are fears of a revenge attack by revolutionaries or victims of the regime.

• Ahmad Ammar, the leader of the unit that captured Saif, said he remained determined to stand by the pledge he made when Saif was captured in the Obari oasis in southern Libya last year.

• Beyond the warrior’s honour professed by the militia, there are powerful political advantages for Zintan in holding Saif.

• In Libya’s post-Gaddafi power struggles, possession is the most powerful card to play against rival factions. Zintan’s militia retained control of Tripoli’s airport, which it captured as the regime fell from power last August, until last month.

• Mr Jueili’s intervention to demand that the trial is held in Zintan would grant the town an acknowledgement of its importance in the uprising against Col Gaddafi’s four-decade dictatorship.

• The official position of the Libyan government is that Saif will be transferred to specially built facilities combining a courthouse and prison.