Post date: Apr 09, 2012 2:30:12 PM
TRIPOLI, LIBYA (APRIL 8, 2012) (REUTERS) - Libya's justice minister on Sunday (April 8) said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of the country's former leader, would not be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the Hague-based court rejected Libya's request to postpone his surrender.
Libyan Justice Minister Ali Ashour says the country will not send Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Minister Ali Ashour said that Saif al-Islam, who remains in a secret prison in the custody of the Zintan rebels who caught him last year, will be tried for financial corruption and crimes of murder and rape in Libya by Libyan judges.
The ICC says it has jurisdiction over the case because it issued warrants last year for the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, and the Libyan leader's intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi who was arrested last month in Mauritania.
A U.N. Security Council Resolution obliges Libya to cooperate with the court, the ICC says, and Tripoli's failure to hand Saif al-Islam over could result in it being reported to the Council.
Speaking to Reuters in Tripoli, Ashour said Libya's legal system was the primary focus, not that of the ICC.
"Regarding the trial of Saif al-Islam. As a justice ministry, we showed a big interest in this case, and the trial will be in Libya because this case is primarily a Libyan judicial system concern. The ICC is a secondary judicial system," he said.
"The NTC has assigned a Libyan representative to negotiate with the ICC (Ahmed Jhany) and he is in contact with the ICC and he appealed the ICC decision to claim Saif al-Islam from Libya after the Libyan request to postpone his surrender was rejected," he added.
He said the ministry of justice had prepared a prison for Saif al-Islam and negotiations were underway with the Zintan rebels to transfer him to Tripoli.
Ashour was clear about the precise charges facing Saif.
"He will be tried for financial corruption and crimes of murder and rape in Libya before and after the revolution of February 17th," he said.
Pressure is mounting on Libya to hand over Gaddafi's son to the ICC as human rights organizations say the country is unable to give Saif al-Islam a fair trial.
He faces the death penalty if found guilty by a Libyan court and a prison term if convicted by the ICC.
Since the elder Gaddafi was killed after being captured alive by rebel fighters, competing militias have yet to lay down their arms and Western human rights organisations have accused them of carrying out numerous extra-judicial executions and other abuses, raising questions about the rule of law there.
On Wednesday, the Hague-based court ordered Tripoli to "comply with its obligations to enforce the warrant of arrest" and surrender him into the court's custody without delay.
The ICC had earlier given Libya until Jan. 10 to confirm whether and when it would surrender Saif al-Islam and to provide information about his health. It extended the deadline until February.
Ashour also denied claims of mistreatment by an ICC defense lawyer who said this week that Saif al-Islam was beaten and misled over charges against him.
"He eats with the people who guard him and he is in a good condition," he said.
In the case of Senussi, Ashour said the Mauritanian president promised to hand over the former Gaddafi intelligence chief to Libya.
"The Mauritanian president promised us that Abdullah Senussi will be handed over to the Libyan government and not to any other government," he said
There has been pressure from the French government to hand Senussi to France where he has been sentenced in absentia for the UTA airliner attack, in which 170 people were killed.
Families of the victims immediately demanded he face justice in France.
Senussi is also suspected in his North African homeland of having played a central role in the killing of more than 1,200 inmates at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison in 1996.