Gaddafi son for trial next month

Muamar Gaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam will go on trial in September in the town of Zintan where he has been held since last November, the prosecution’s spokesman told AFP on Thursday.

“A committee from the prosecutor general’s office has completed its investigation into the crimes committed by Seif al-Islam from the start of the revolution on February 15 (2011) and has prepared the charge sheet.

He said the chargesheet would be “approved by the prosecutor general in the coming days and a date set for the September trial opening” in Zintan, a hilltop town 170 kilometres southwest of the Libyan capital.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague had issued a warrant for Seif’s arrest on charges of crimes against humanity during the conflict which overthrew his father last year but the new Libyan authorities have insisted that he stand trial in his home country.

“Zintan is a Libyan city and the law allows us to try Seif in the majority of Libyan cities, in that these crimes concern the whole country.

He dismissed press reports that the decision was the outcome of negotiations between the prosecutor general’s office and a militia comprising former rebels which arrested Seif and has demanded he be tried in Zintan.

Activists have raised concerns that Seif, 40, could face the death penalty if tried in Libya. And Seif, his lawyers said on July 31, is pleading to be put on trial before The Hague-based court for justice to be served.