Libya has enough evidence to charge Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam with crimes against humanity, lawyers told the International Criminal Court on Tuesday amid a dispute over where he should face justice.
While the ICC wants Saif, the only son of the slain Libyan leader in custody, to be tried in The Hague, Libya’s post-revolutionary authorities insist he should stand trial in his home country.
A probe “has already produced considerable results”, Libya lawyer Philippe Sands told a two-day hearing on Saif’s fate. “There is a wide range of evidence that will constitute an indictment the same as that presented by the ICC’s prosecutor.”
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Saif, 40, and Gaddafi’s former spymaster Abdullah Senussi, 63, in June last year for crimes against humanity allegedly committed while trying to crush the popular revolt against the veteran leader’s iron-fisted rule.
ICC defence lawyers are expected to argue that Saif would not get a fair trial in Libya, where he could face the death penalty, but the ICC prosecutor’s office said Libya’s prosecution of Saif and Senussi appeared to be on course.
“We see that the case being presented appears to be on track,” prosecutor Sara Criscitelli told the ICC’s three-judge bench.