Gaddafi’s heir apparent set free under amnesty law
SEIF AL-ISLAM, the second son and heir apparent of the late deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is said to have been freed in Libya after more than five years in captivity.
The Abu Bakr al-Sadiq Brigade, a militia that controls the town of Zintan in western Libya, said al-Islam was freed late on Friday under an amnesty law promulgated by the parliament based in the country’s east during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“He is now free and has left the city of Zintan,” the group said on Facebook.
There was no independent confirmation of al-Islam’s release, which could spark further instability in a country already wracked by divisions and violence.
Al-Islam had been held in Zintan since November 2011, just days after his father was killed in a Nato-backed uprising against his decades-long rule.
The Zintan militia, which opposes Libya’s UN-backed government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital, had refused to hand him over to authorities despite several legal cases.
Among them was an arrest warrant for al-Islam issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity related to the bloody repression of the uprising.
Al-Islam’s lawyer at the ICC, Karim Khan, said: “I am not able to confirm or deny any matters at this moment in time.”
Previous reports of al-Islam’s release have proven false.
It was unclear why the Zintan group may have decided to release him now.
His mother and some of his siblings fled to Algeria after the revolution and eventually settled in Oman.
His release comes with the country still rocked by infighting, with authorities in the east, reportedly allied with the forces of powerful strongman Khalifa Haftar, refusing to recognise the Tripoli- based GNA.
Some in the country have even started yearning for the Gaddafi years, when the oil-rich country was ruled by a deeply repressive regime but was also stable. Al-Islam, 44, is the second of Gaddafi’s eight children, the eldest son of his second wife, Safiya. The fluent English speaker often appeared in the West as the public face of his father’s regime and was seen by many as a potential reformer.
But al-Islam then became the defiant face of his father’s embattled regime, appearing on TV or giving news conferences to warn that opposition forces would be crushed.
Al-Islam and eight other Gaddafi-era figures were sentenced to death by a Tripoli court in July 2015.