Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the fugitive son of Libya’s toppled late leader, told the International Criminal Court (ICC) he was innocent of alleged crimes against humanity, the court prosecutor said yesterday in Beijing.
The court, based in The Hague, has said it made informal contact with Qaddafi, the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and is seeking to arrest him and bring him to trial on the charges stemming from Libya’s civil war.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the contacts were through intermediaries, and Saif al-Islam maintained he was innocent and wanted to understand what could happen to him if cleared of charges.
“There are some people connected with him that are in touch with people connected with us, so we have no direct relation; it’s through intermediaries,” Moreno-Ocampo said in a brief interview after arriving in Beijing, where he is attending a law conference. “But we trust very much the person who is in touch for our side. He says he is innocent, he will prove he is innocent, and then he is interested in the consequence after that.”
The court charged Muammar Qaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and former Libyan intelligence director Abdullah al-Senussi with crimes against humanity for the bombing and shooting of civilian protesters in February.
Saif al-Islam Qaddafi fled Libya after forces loyal to Libya’s new rulers captured and apparently killed his father outside his hometown of Sirte. Saif al-Islam Qaddafi is believed to have escaped across Libya’s southern border into Niger.
A senior military official of Libya’s National Transitional Council, said this week that Saif al-Islam and Senussi wanted to surrender to the ICC in The Hague because they felt unsafe in Libya, Algeria or Niger.
Under a deal, Saif al-Islam would be taken to The Hague where the ICC shares a detention unit with the UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is trying the former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
However, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi was also concerned about what would happen even if he were found innocent, Moreno-Ocampo said.
“He said he is innocent and he will prove to the judges he is innocent, and then he is more concerned about what will happen after, if he is considered innocent by the court,” Moreno-Ocampo said.
“So we explain to him the legal system, so we are making no deal, though we have a case against him,” he added. “But we are explaining the legal system and his right to defend himself.”
The prosecutor confirmed that the court was worried that Saif al-Islam could escape its reach by fleeing to another country through mercenaries. Intelligence reports suggested that the mercenaries could include South Africans, he said.
“We have some information that there is a mercenary group trying to help him to move to a different country, so we are trying to prevent this activity,” Moreno-Ocampo said, adding that “we are also working with some states to see if we can disrupt this attempt.”
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