Gaddafi’s son extradited from Niger to face trial
A SECOND son of the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is in custody in Libya after being extradited from Niger in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Saadi Gaddafi, who is bestknown overseas for his love of football, arrived at the Mitiga airbase in the west of the capital Tripoli and was transferred to Hadba prison.
He will be held there pending a trial alongside other regime loyalists including Abdullah alSenussi, his late father’s brotherin-law, right-hand man and security chief.
Photographs posted on the internet by prison guards show Saadi in a blue prison uniform being shaved of his long hair and the beard he grew apparently to signify a new sense of religion.
‘‘Saadi Muammar Gaddafi was extradited to Libya from Niger this morning and is currently being detained by Libya’s Judicial Police,’’ the Libyan Government said yesterday.
Saadi had been granted asylum by Niger after fleeing across the Sahara as his father’s regime collapsed in August 2011.
Niger authorities accused him of breaching the terms of their agreement after he failed to stay at the house handed over to him. He was also accused of involvement in an attack believed to be by Gaddafi regime loyalists on an airport in the south of Libya.
Saadi, 40, joins his older brother, Saif al-Islam, in Libyan custody. Saif al-Islam is being held in Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, where the local militia that captured him as he fled across the desert in November 2011 is refusing to give him up to the government. He is also wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Unlike Saif al-Islam, who studied at the London School of Economics and argued publicly for political reform in Libya, Saadi Gaddafi was seen as a playboy more interested in girls and football.
After a Libyan investment company he controlled bought shares in Italian football club Juventus, he managed to obtain a deal to play Serie A football in Italy, for Perugia, before being suspended for failing a drugs test. He was once described as the worst player ever to play top flight football in Italy.
However, in Tripoli, he forced his way into ownership of Libya’s top club, Al-Ahly, appointing himself to the team. After Tripoli fell to the rebels, former players and supporters told of a serious of violent incidents over which he presided.
Most notably, he was present when soldiers fired on an overenthusiastic crowd at the Libyan or ‘‘Liberator’s’’ Cup Final in 1996, killing 20 fans.