Saif to Surrender?

Will Saif Surrender?

Last seen in a caravan of armed cars and technicals heading for the Niger border, Saif Gadhafi just might consider it wise to seek the justice of an international European court than fading away into Sub-Sahara Africa where he could face the same fate as his father.

Last viewed on camera Saif appeared at the hotel in Tripoli where international journalists covering the war from the Loyalists side were embedded. He invited to take reporters on a tour of Tripoli's war zones to show how much in control things were. Upbeat and smiling like a slippery rascal, he then turned up in Bani Walid, the desert oasis mountain village that maintained its loyality until, well, until he left town.

Now, apparently unable to join his family in exil in Algeria, or his former generals in Niger, who would ostensibly respect the International arrest warrants out on him, he is considering a life in a relatively clean European jail, where he would get three square meals a day, a good legal team and a fun time as an actor in court and on the world's stage.

Or can he and will he simply disappear, stay on the lam and gather a network and army to continue the fight?

The National Transitional Council and the Libyan people are not at all happy that Seif al Islam, the second son of former Libyan leader Muammar Al Qathafi is still on the run. Most probably by now he might have reached his destination to seek a safe haven along with his convoy that crossed the desert towards the borders of Niger and Algeria. So far, no country seems to be aware of his presence.

The country that agrees to offer Seif its hospitality could be in trouble with the international organisations as he and his brother-in-law, Abdullah al-Senoussi, who is said to accompany him, are both wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Such cannot be taken lightly and the countries must abide by the rules.

Now more information is surfacing about Seif's role and his relations with his father after they, along with the other son, Muatassim and the former leader's inner circle fled from Tripoli after its fall in August.

AN officer who was very close to Seif, the only one of Al Qathafi's sons still unaccounted for, told Reuters that during the siege of Sirte and Bani Wlid, Seif called his father frequently on the telephone and increasingly feared being hit by a mortar as he tried to escape from the besieged town of Bani Walid.

Al-Senussi Sharif al-Senussi, a lieutenant in Al Qathafi's army who was part of Seif's security team in Bani Walid until the city fell on October 17 described Seif as a nervous wreck. He said Seif used to call his father many times. Senussi has no relation with Al Qathafi's powerful former security chief, Abdullah al-Senoussi.

"He repeated to us: don't tell anyone where I am. Don't let them spot me. He was afraid of mortars. He seemed confused," Senussi said, speaking to Reuters at a makeshift jail inside Bani Walid's airport where he has been kept by forces loyal to Libya's ruling National Transitional Council since his capture alongside other pro-Al Qathafi troops last week.

Al-Senussi's identity was confirmed by Omar al Mukhtar, commander of anti-Al Qathafi forces in northern Bani Walid whose brigade is in charge of the jail and the airport.

Mukhtar and Senussi, both said Seif al-Islam slipped out of the city around the day it fell to anti-Al Qathafi forces, with Senussi saying that when Seif's convoy left Bani Walid it was hit by an air strike but he escaped alive

Reuters said that it was allowed to interview Senussi and al Mukhtar separately by NTC soldiers. The conversations were privately conducted at the jail and, the news agency said, that nobody from the NTC listened in to the conversation.

On Monday, an NTC official had said that Al Qathafi's fugitive son was near Libya's borders with Niger and Algeria and planning to flee the country using a forged passport.

Mukhtar, the commander, said: "I and my unit were chasing him on October 19. Then NATO struck his convoy. He was in an armoured vehicle and survived and someone helped him to escape. We searched that area but we lost him there."

Senussi said he was in charge of communication among various pro-Al Qathafi brigades in Bani Walid, and fought until the last day. He said he saw Seif frequently until he escaped from Bani Walid, and attended many meetings with him.

"We were not friends but we knew each other. We had a professional relationship," Senussi, told Reuters. "We did not really listen carefully to what he said toward the end. We were too busy fighting."

He added that Al Qathafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim had also been there until recently but managed to escape separately days before it fell.

Bani Walid residents said Seif had been holed up in a safe house in a neighbourhood called al Taboul before his final push out of the besieged city last week.

At the jail, Senussi said that he had fought on the frontline, but was captured the day Bali Walid fell. He went on to say that the Al Qathafi commanders kept telling them that reinforcements were on their way to Bani Walid, that they were sending more men. “But they never did," he said.

Senussi said he now fully endorsed the revolution and wished he had realised it earlier. Asked why he did not try to defect, he said: "I wish I could have joined the rebels earlier. I was in hospital for five months, then military police handcuffed me and brought me here. I was forced to fight."

Gaddafi's son and intelligence chief "want to surrender"

Tripoli, Oct 27 (ANI): Slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has offered to 'surrender' to the International Criminal Court in return for a guarantee of his safety.

Gaddafi's 39-year-old son has been on the run since the NATO airstrike on the city of Sirte last Thursday that led to his father's capture and execution.

A senior official in the National Transitional Council, Abdel Majid Mlegta, said Saif and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, the ousted tyrant's brother-in-law, had been trying to broker a deal through a third country, believed to be Niger, to hand themselves in.

Senussi is said to have fled into Niger and there were reports suggesting that Saif had also crossed into the country, the Daily Mail reports.

According to Xinhua, a Nigerien military source said, Saif al-Islam who is being sought by Interpol had tried to cross over to the Nigerien territory on Monday night in the extreme northern parts of the country.

Saif and Senussi are being sought by the ICC for committing crimes against humanity.

Yesterday, the southern border area with Niger was the focus of an intense search operation said to include elite troops from Britain and Qatar.

The race is on to prevent Saif escaping over the border into one of Libya's neighbours, where other members of the Gaddafi clan have already found refuge. (ANI)

Published: 4:23PM Thursday October 27, 2011 Source: Reuters

Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi propose to hand themselves in to the International Criminal Court, a senior official with Libya's National Transitional Council said.

"They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague," Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters from Libya.

Spokesman for the Hague court Fadi El Abdallah said, "we don't have confirmation about this now. We are trying to contact the NTC for more information."

Saif al-Islam is wanted by the war crimes court, as was his late father. There is also a warrant out for Senussi.

Saif al-Islam has been on the run since Libyan forces overran his father's home town Sirte at the weekend. He is thought to be somewhere near Libya's southern border with Niger.

Mlegta said his information came from intelligence sources who told him that Saif al-Islam and Senussi were trying to broker a deal to surrender to the court through a neighbouring country, which he did not name.

They had concluded it was not safe for them to remain in Libya, or to go to Algeria or Niger, two countries where Gaddafi family members are already sheltering.

"They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they are or to go anywhere," Mlegta said.

In any case, they said that Niger was asking for too much money for them to stay.

In June the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam and Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity after the UN Security Council referred the Libyan situation to the court in February.

All three were charged with crimes against humanity for the Libyan regime's violent crackdown on protesters in February.

It was only the second time the UN Security Council had referred a conflict to the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court.

The Security Council referred the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region to the ICC in 2005.

Fighting continues

The war is not yet over for Libya's new rulers in the desert town of Bani Walid where Gaddafi loyalists vow to fight on for their fallen leader and other residents are angry over violence and looting.

Enraged by what they see as acts of retribution by forces loyal to Libya's new government, tribesmen say their men are already trying to regroup into a new insurgency movement in and around the strategic desert town south of the capital, Tripoli.

"The Warfalla tribe is boiling inside. They can't wait to do something about this," Abu Abdurakhman, a local resident, said during a tour of his house destroyed by what he said was a revenge attack by anti-Gaddafi forces.

"The Warfalla men of Tripoli and elsewhere are sending around text messages saying: 'We need to gather and do something about this. Let's gather! Let's gather!'"

Gaddafi loyalists have no hope of reinstalling the former strongman's clan following the dictator's death, with his son, Saif Al-Islam, on the run, and a wave of anti-Gaddafi sentiment sweeping Libya and internationally.

But Libya's interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), is aware that support from disenchanted, armed civilians could bolster a tiny but lingering Gaddafi force in the desert and some towns.

And to nip any further insurgency in the bud, it now needs to win people's hearts and minds - a formidable task in a war-shattered town like Bani Walid.

Bani Walid is of particular importance because it is the spiritual homebase to Libya's biggest tribe, the powerful Warfalla, which includes up to one million of Libya's six million population, with tribesmen scattered across the country.

The town is awash with guns and some neighbourhoods still flaunt pro-Gaddafi graffiti. Shootouts between government forces and Gaddafi loyalists occur daily on the edge of Bani Walid.

Government forces present in the city said they were aware of the problem but believed that with Gaddafi now dead, hostilities would soon fizzle out in the absence of a clear goal and before developing into a formidable insurgent force.

"Yes, we know there are armed civilian loyalists," said Omar al Mukhtar, commander of anti-Gaddafi forces in northern Bani Walid. "But I don't think they pose any threat because they only have light weapons. "

In private interviews, fighters were visibly more alarmed.

"We always stamp on Gaddafi portraits spread out on the ground but they step over them. There are shootouts every day with Gaddafi loyalists," said one soldier from a Bani Walid brigade.

Fighters said loyalists were using dried-up riverbeds to launch night-time attacks on their positions - a tactic that highlights the loyalists' resolve to fight on.

Revenge

Tucked away in desert hills 150km south of Tripoli, Bani Walid fell to NTC forces on Oct. 17 -- three days before Gaddafi's death marked the end of the eight-month war.

NTC forces rolled into the city in Soviet tanks seized from Gaddafi forces earlier in the war and set up military bases in central Bani Walid -- still very much a ghost town after thousands fled following weeks of fierce fighting.

Troops patrol deserted streets and revolutionary flags flutter above gutted buildings. Some families are slowly coming back, only to discover that many family homes had been ruined. There is still no water and electricity.

A step deeper into its neighbourhoods, their mud and brick homes cascading steeply into barren valleys, offers a glimpse into an unfriendly world still living in a state of war.

In one neighbourhood, Tlumat, gunshots rung out and locals gathered quickly during a Reuters visit on Tuesday, some looking alarmed and hiding their faces with black scarves.

Gaddafi may be dead and buried, but freshly sprayed graffiti offered a sinister reminder that for some people in Libya, his memory still lives on.

In Tlumat, crumbling walls were covered with fresh slogans sprayed in the green colour of Gaddafi's own revolution in 1969. One, peppered with bullet holes, echoed the ubiquitous slogan of the old rule: "Allah, Muammar, Libya, nothing else".

Residents said NTC units appeared regularly in their neighbourhood -- perceived as pro-Gaddafi -- shooting randomly in the air at night to terrorise the people in the past week.

Locals also accused brigades from far-flung places such as Zawiya and Garyan of attacking their homes because of their belief that Bani Walid tribesmen once fought on Gaddafi's side during the siege of those towns earlier in the war.

"This is not a revolution. These are acts of revenge. What I have seen is not a revolution," said Abdulkhakim Maad, 30.
"These so-called rebels are stealing everything, looting houses, cars, people's belongings. They storm into neighbourhoods and shoot everywhere to scare the people."

Swearing angrily, another man who was selling cigarettes on a street corner littered with rubble and bullet casings, said: "The rebels destroyed our houses. There is a lot of looting. We were already poor. All of this made our lives even worse."

Some locals said they were ready to give the NTC a chance to contain local brigades and enforce law and order.

"But if the NTC does nothing then we will consider them as an enemy," said Tabet Awena, 80, a tribal elder in Bani Walid, pointing at a house with a smashed-up facade destroyed in what he said was a recent raid by an NTC unit.

"The reaction here will be very strong. We will fight to the death."

Commanders denied allegations of looting and retribution.

"Yes, houses were ruined, cars, personal belongings and gold stolen. Homes were destroyed by gangs from Zawiya. They are not real rebels," said Abdusalam Saad Mheda, a field commander.

"Rebels are not involved in any looting. They are good people. They are loyal to their country."
Hearts and minds

Abu Abdurakhman, whose house was damaged in what he said was a raid by an NTC unit three days ago, said that people were so angry that even those who initially welcomed rebel forces during the siege of Bani Walid have now turned against them.

"Muammar Gaddafi may be over but these people see what the so-called rebels are doing and they are angry," he said.

"Most of the looting happened when people were away. When they came back even those who supported the revolution ... had turned against it."

With the staunchest loyalists hiding in the desert, any reconciliation effort will be hard. Many families are divided, and people spoke of growing bitterness even within their tribe.

"My cousins are Gaddafi loyalists, so they are staying in the desert," said Mustafa Hassan, 32, as he drove back into Bani Walid with his family from their war-time exile in Tripoli. "It's happening in every family. It's all divided now."

The NTC is aware that in a place like Bani Walid, its top priority is to win people's hearts and minds -- and to do so quickly, before it's too late to stop an insurgency.

"These are simple people. They were imprisoned by Gaddafi militiamen for months and now they don't know what is happening in other parts of Libya," said Mheda, the commander.

"Many families are coming back but their houses are destroyed. There is no electricity. We are working on that. Every day will be better."

Gaddafi's son Saif offers to 'hand himself in' to International Criminal Court
The 39-year-old is wanted for war crimes

He is thought to be in Libya's southern border area with Niger

By SAM GREENHILL and DAVID WILLIAMS
Last updated at 1:04 AM on 27th October 2011

Colonel Gaddafi’s favourite son – Saif al-Islam – has offered to ‘surrender’ to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in return for a guarantee of his safety, Libyan officials said.

The 39-year-old British-educated playboy has been on the run since the Nato airstrike on the city of Sirte last Thursday that led to his father’s capture and execution.

The offer of surrender raises the prospect of a trial in The Hague which could include new details of the background to the Lockerbie bombing and murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher.

But it could prove embarrassing as Saif was close to leading figures in the last Labour government, not least Tony Blair.

A senior official in the National Transitional Council, Abdel Majid Mlegta, said Saif and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, the ousted tyrant’s brother-in-law, had been trying to broker a deal through a third country – believed to be Niger – to hand themselves in.

Senussi is said to have fled into Niger late last week and there were reports last night that Saif had also crossed into the country where hundreds of millions of pounds of Gaddafi’s smuggled money is held.

Saif and Senussi are wanted on ICC warrants for genocide and crimes against the Libyan people.

Commander Mlegta said the men believed ‘nowhere was safe’ for them. ‘They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,’ he said. ‘They feel that it is not safe for them anywhere.’

Gaddafi’s four other surviving children – three sons and a daughter – are in Algeria and Niger.

Niger received millions of dollars of support from Gaddafi and he remains popular. Its government has said fugitives would not be turned back to Libya.

Yesterday, the southern border area with Niger was the focus of an intense search operation said to include elite troops from Britain and Qatar.

Should he not surrender, the race is on to prevent Saif escaping over the border into one of Libya’s neighbours, where other members of the Gaddafi clan have already found refuge.

Saif, who holds the secrets to Gaddafi’s 42-year reign, has been on the run since last Thursday when his father and brother Mutassim, 34, were captured and killed in Sirte.

A defiant broadcast from Saif was aired on Syrian television on Sunday, though it is not clear when it was recorded.

He had vowed: ‘We continue our resistance. I’m in Libya, alive, free and intend to go to the very end and exact revenge.

‘I say go to hell, you rats and Nato behind you.

‘This is our country, we live in it, and we die in it and we are continuing the struggle.’

Intelligence sources said the playboy, once a confidante of some of Britain’s leading Establishment figures, is believed to have swapped vehicles several times to avoid detection.

British Special Forces and reconnaissance forces are understood to be on the ground and involved in the manhunt, along with Libyan rebel fighters.

They are being assisted by Nato spy planes sweeping over the vast area conducting aerial searches, and also by sophisticated electronic eavesdropping to match Saif’s voice if he uses his phone.

Any incoming calls from Niger and Algeria, where the Gaddafi family and their former security chief Abdullah al-Senussi fled, can be tracked.

British spies also have the numbers from seized Gaddafi phones and those belonging to Saif’s brother Saadi and sister Aisha, who escaped Libya earlier in the year.

However, Libya’s 2,700-mile desert border is impossible to secure. One source described it as being ‘like a sieve…anyone can slip through. It is too big and too empty to police in any conventional form.’

The fate of Saif, who studied at the London School of Economics and owned a £10million London house, will be being keenly watched by certain figures in Britain.

If he is captured and brought to trial, he would doubtless take the opportunity to grandstand about his relationships with Tony Blair, Lord Mandelson and Prince Andrew.

Any court appearance by Saif would inevitably turn a spotlight on Britain’s attempts to foster a relationship with Gaddafi’s favoured son, who became the West’s ‘point man’ after Tony Blair signed the notorious ‘Deal in the Desert’ in March 2004.

Last year Saif described Mr Blair as a ‘personal family friend’ and said he had visited Libya ‘many, many times’ since leaving Downing Street.

There have been conflicting reports about Saif’s escape. Some say he was injured in Sirte when Nato warplanes struck the convoy his father was in.

Amid the carnage and confusion, he apparently slipped the net and regrouped with other fugitives from the entourage and is protected by the Nomadic Tuareg tribe.

Earlier this week, rebel forces surrounded an area near the Gaddafi stronghold desert town of Bani Walid, following a possible sighting. Bani Walid is about 100 miles south west of Tripoli, and is on the way towards Niger.

One Libyan official, quoted by Reuters, said: ‘He’s on the triangle of Niger and Algeria. He’s south of Ghat [an oasis town in southern Libya]. He was given a false Libyan passport.’

He said Saif’s escape was being masterminded by Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Senussi, who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Yesterday Rissa ag Boula, an adviser to Niger’s president, said that ethnic Tuaregs – long kept sweet with handouts from Gaddafi, and among his strongest supporters - were helping guide Saif across the sands.

Mr Boula said: ‘If he comes here, the government will accept him - but the government will also need to respect its international obligations. It is up to him to decide.’ He said Saif appeared to be poised to cross into Algeria in order to make his way to Niger, the same route that his brother Saadi and more than 30 other Gaddafi loyalists had used in September.

Niger’s government has said the fugitives would not be turned back to Libya without guarantees for their safety. It claims most of the group is currently under house arrest in the capital, Niamey, in a gated compound.

Mosques and hotels throughout Niger were built by Gaddafi and he remains deeply popular in the nation, making it a natural sanctuary for fleeing members of his inner circle.

Saif on the Lam

The National Transitional Council and the Libyan people are not at all happy that Seif al Islam, the second son of former Libyan leader Muammar Al Qathafi is still on the run. Most probably by now he might have reached his destination to seek a safe haven along with his convoy that crossed the desert towards the borders of Niger and Algeria. So far, no country seems to be aware of his presence.

The country that agrees to offer Seif its hospitality could be in trouble with the international organisations as he and his brother-in-law, Abdullah al-Senoussi, who is said to accompany him, are both wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Such cannot be taken lightly and the countries must abide by the rules.

Now more information is surfacing about Seif's role and his relations with his father after they, along with the other son, Muatassim and the former leader's inner circle fled from Tripoli after its fall in August.

AN officer who was very close to Seif, the only one of Al Qathafi's sons still unaccounted for, told Reuters that during the siege of Sirte and Bani Wlid, Seif called his father frequently on the telephone and increasingly feared being hit by a mortar as he tried to escape from the besieged town of Bani Walid.

Al-Senussi Sharif al-Senussi, a lieutenant in Al Qathafi's army who was part of Seif's security team in Bani Walid until the city fell on October 17 described Seif as a nervous wreck. He said Seif used to call his father many times. Senussi has no relation with Al Qathafi's powerful former security chief, Abdullah al-Senoussi.

"He repeated to us: don't tell anyone where I am. Don't let them spot me. He was afraid of mortars. He seemed confused," Senussi said, speaking to Reuters at a makeshift jail inside Bani Walid's airport where he has been kept by forces loyal to Libya's ruling National Transitional Council since his capture alongside other pro-Al Qathafi troops last week.

Al-Senussi's identity was confirmed by Omar al Mukhtar, commander of anti-Al Qathafi forces in northern Bani Walid whose brigade is in charge of the jail and the airport.

Mukhtar and Senussi, both said Seif al-Islam slipped out of the city around the day it fell to anti-Al Qathafi forces, with Senussi saying that when Seif's convoy left Bani Walid it was hit by an air strike but he escaped alive

Reuters said that it was allowed to interview Senussi and al Mukhtar separately by NTC soldiers. The conversations were privately conducted at the jail and, the news agency said, that nobody from the NTC listened in to the conversation.

On Monday, an NTC official had said that Al Qathafi's fugitive son was near Libya's borders with Niger and Algeria and planning to flee the country using a forged passport.

Mukhtar, the commander, said: "I and my unit were chasing him on October 19. Then NATO struck his convoy. He was in an armoured vehicle and survived and someone helped him to escape. We searched that area but we lost him there."

Senussi said he was in charge of communication among various pro-Al Qathafi brigades in Bani Walid, and fought until the last day. He said he saw Seif frequently until he escaped from Bani Walid, and attended many meetings with him.

"We were not friends but we knew each other. We had a professional relationship," Senussi, told Reuters. "We did not really listen carefully to what he said toward the end. We were too busy fighting."

He added that Al Qathafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim had also been there until recently but managed to escape separately days before it fell.

Bani Walid residents said Seif had been holed up in a safe house in a neighbourhood called al Taboul before his final push out of the besieged city last week.

At the jail, Senussi said that he had fought on the frontline, but was captured the day Bali Walid fell. He went on to say that the Al Qathafi commanders kept telling them that reinforcements were on their way to Bani Walid, that they were sending more men. “But they never did," he said.

Senussi said he now fully endorsed the revolution and wished he had realised it earlier. Asked why he did not try to defect, he said: "I wish I could have joined the rebels earlier. I was in hospital for five months, then military police handcuffed me and brought me here. I was forced to fight."

Reuters) - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, fearing for his life if captured in Libya, has tried to arrange for an aircraft to fly him out of his desert refuge and into the custody of the Hague war crimes court, a senior Libyan official said on Thursday.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/idINIndia-60163920111027

Details were sketchy but a picture has built up since his father's grisly killing while in the hands of vengeful rebel fighters a week ago that suggests Muammar Gaddafi's 39-year-old heir-apparent has taken refuge among Sahara nomads and is seeking a safe haven abroad.

The senior Libyan official in the National Transitional Council said later that Saif al-Islam had crossed the border into Niger but had not yet found a way to hand himself in to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

"There is a contact with Mali and with South Africa and with another neighbouring country to organise his exit ... He hasn't got confirmation yet, he's still waiting," said the official, who declined to be named.

Even if he can still draw on some of the vast fortune the Gaddafi clan built up abroad during 42 years in control of North Africa's main oilfields, his indictment by the ICC over his efforts to crush the revolt limits the options open to him.

That may explain an apparent willingness, in communications monitored by intelligence services and shared with Libya's interim rulers, to discuss a surrender to the ICC, whereas his mother and surviving siblings simply fled to Algeria and Niger.

The Court, which relies on signatory states to hand over suspects, said it was trying to confirm the whereabouts and intentions of Saif al-Islam and ex-intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, the third man indicted along with the elder Gaddafi.

A source with the NTC, which drove the Gaddafis from power in Tripoli in August, told Reuters the two surviving indictees were together, protected by Tuareg nomads.

"Saif is concerned about his safety," the source said. "He believes handing himself over is the best option for him."

The younger Gaddafi, once seen as a potential liberal reformer but who adopted a belligerent, win-or-die persona at his father's side this year, was looking for help from abroad to fly out and take his chances at The Hague, where there is no death penalty:

"He wants to be sent an aircraft," the NTC source said by telephone from Libya. "He wants assurances."

COURT SEEKS CONFIRMATION

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said the court was trying to confirm the NTC comments and work out how to move the suspects:

"It depends where the suspect is and how we can get into contact with him and what would be necessary to bring him to The Hague. There are different scenarios," El Abdallah said.
Some observers question the accuracy of NTC information, given frequent lapses in intelligence recently. Some suggest surrendering to the ICC may be only one option for Saif al-Islam, who may hope for a welcome in one of the African states on which his father lavished gifts.

The African Union, and powerful members like South Africa, grumble about the nine-year-old ICC's focus so far on Africans and some of them may prove sympathetic. Even if arrested on charges relating to his role in attacks on protesters in February and March, Saif al-Islam could make defence arguments that might limit any sentence, lawyers said.

NTC forces, which overran Gaddafi's last bastions of Bani Walid and Sirte this month, lack the resources to hunt and capture fugitives deep in the desert, the source said.

NATO, whose air power turned the civil war in the rebels' favour, could help, he added.
But NATO, which will end its Libya operations at the end of the month, stresses its mission is to protect civilians, not target individuals - though it was a NATO air strike that halted Muammar Gaddafi's flight last week.

A captured pro-Gaddafi fighter at Bani Walid told Reuters that the London-educated Saif al-Islam had been in that town, south of Tripoli until it fell earlier this month.

The man, one of his bodyguards, said the younger Gaddafi was "confused" and in fear for his life when he escaped Bani Walid. If he has seen the gruesome video footage of his father's capture, he knows how he may be treated if he remains in Libya.

NTC WANTS TRIAL

Asked what the NTC was doing to cooperate with the ICC, the vice chairman of the Council, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, noted that the Libyans still hoped to try the suspects themselves:

"There aren't any special arrangements by the NTC," he said. "If Abdullah al-Senussi and Saif al-Islam are arrested inside Libya they will be tried and judged based on Libyan law.

"If they fled and went to countries such as Niger, for example, they will have to be surrendered to the ICC," he adding, noting reports that Senussi had already reached Niger.

Earlier this week, an NTC official said Saif al-Islam had acquired a passport in a false name and was lying low south of Ghat, a border crossing with Algeria through which his mother, sister and two of his surviving brothers fled in August.

Algeria is not a signatory to the Rome treaty which set up the ICC, but might face strong diplomatic pressure to hand over indicted suspects. The NTC has also been pressing Algiers to hand over the other Gaddafi relatives.

Niger, an impoverished former French colony, has said it would honour its commitments to the ICC. The mayor of the northern Niger town of Agadez, a transit point for other fleeing Gaddafi allies, told Reuters Saif al-Islam would be extradited to The Hague if he showed up.

Tunisia, to where other Gaddafi loyalists have fled, is also a signatory to the ICC's conventions.
A member of the Malian parliament who has been in charge of relations with Libya's NTC discounted reports that Gaddafi and Senussi had crossed Algeria or Niger into Mali.

The mystery over their flight has spawned many rumours.

In South Africa, one newspaper said a plane was on standby there to fly north and rescue Saif al-Islam along with a group of South Africans working for him. NTC officials say South Africans may have been among those killed in Sirte last week when Gaddafi was caught and killed.

DEFENCE OPTIONS

Should he end up, like former Yugoslav leaders and others, in a Dutch jail, Saif al-Islam would have no shortage of defenders, though a defence of simply following his father's orders would carry little weight with ICC judges.

An Iraqi lawyer who defended allies of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-supervised trials in Baghdad said the younger Gaddafi would be entitled to argue that his actions were legitimate acts of defence during an aggressive war by foreign powers.

Though some of the ICC indictment relates to the use of force against unarmed demonstrators before NATO intervened, Badie Arif, who defended former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, told Reuters: "It was a foreign aggression made by colonialist countries and by NATO ... It is illegitimate and illegal by all international standards."

Geert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international criminal law attorney, said Saif al-Islam could challenge the ICC case on two main fronts -- that it was a political show trial aimed at justifying Western-backed regime change, or by proving there was no evidence of a "political plan" to kill protesters.

A public platform could allow Saif al-Islam to embarrass some of the Western leaders with whom he led a rapprochement in recent years.

His role in promoting reforms, thwarted by domestic opponents, might also be used in his defence, though his angry outbursts against the revolt would enable prosecutors to bolster a case in which they accuse him of recruiting mercenaries to kill protesters as part of a "predetermined plan" with his father and Senuss.