Libyan court sentences Gaddafi son Saif, 7 other ex-officials to death

Seif al-Islam, the son of the former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, was sentenced to death by a Libyan court Tuesday over killings in the 2011 uprising that led to his father being removed from power.

Seif al-Islam was not in court as he is being held in the south-western hill town of Zintan by a militia opposed to the Tripoli authorities.

– Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was sued for his alleged implication in the shooting and killing of protesters during the 2011 uprisings in Libya. One, which is internationally recognized as the legitimate government, is based in eastern Libya while an Islamist government controls parts of the west, including Tripoli.

Once considered the heir to his father, London-educated Saif-who is also wanted by the worldwide Criminal Court for similar charges-has a right to appeal the decision.

The trial, which involved more than 30 former Qaddafi-regime officials, is being severely criticized as both unfair and unprofessional.

Eight others – including former Libyan spy chief Abdullah al Senussi – were also sentenced to death by the court.

The trial, which has proved controversial since its outset last April, has had human rights groups and the global Criminal Court calling its standards and legitimacy into question. It must be noted here that Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed dictator of Libya, was killed in 2011 by rebel forces attempting to free the country from military dictatorship.

Saif al-Islam, who is the eldest of Gaddafi’s nine children, has been held in Zintan since his capture in November 2011. However, legal experts and advocates for human rights said the trial was tainted as well as politicized from the beginning.

However, he was not present during the sentencing and the entire trial since the younger Gaddafi was in another prison about 100 miles away from Tripoli, Libya’s capital where the court is located, reports BBC.

Islam’s defence lawyer, Ali Aldaa, told the New York Times that he would contest the convictions before the Libyan Supreme Court, which needs to endorse the sentences.

Saif al-Islam did not appear in court for the verdict.

The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that there were “serious issues relating to access to lawyers, claims of ill-treatment, and trials conducted in absentia”.

Judges in the capital faced pressure from the Islamists to reach a guilty verdict, the Tobruk government’s justice minister said in comments carried by the Libya Herald newspaper on Monday. Among the charges he was convicted of were incitement of murder and rape.

He insisted that the victims of the serious crimes committed during the 2011 uprising deserve justice but that can only be delivered through fair and transparent proceedings. Four were acquitted.