Gaddafi Son Saif al-Islam ‘Released’ from Libya Jail

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Saif Al-Islam GaddafiMuammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam has been released from custody after his death sentence was quashed, his British lawyer said.

Muammar Gaddafi’s most prominent son was sentenced to death in 2015 for crimes committed during the revolution that overthrew his father. The sentence had been quashed by Libya’s new UN-backed government this year, and Saif is now at an undisclosed location after being released from house arrest in the mountain town of Zintan where he had been held for five years.

“He’s been released from Zintan detention. The release, I’m told, was on 12 April – there was an order from the central government,” said his lawyer. “He’s in Libya, he’s in good health, he’s safe and he’s well.”

The claim could not be independently verified, and neither the UN-backed government in Tripoli or Zintan authorities have yet commented on the report.

In practical terms, an amnesty for Saif would not be a decision the government can enforce as Zintan is home to one of the most powerful Libyan militias, and any release would depend on agreement by Zintan leaders.

His captors in Zintan refused to transfer him to Tripoli, where he was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in July 2015. The verdict had drawn condemnation abroad, with Human Rights Watch saying the trial was riddled with legal flaws and carried out amid widespread lawlessness undermining the credibility of the judiciary.

Saif al-Islam is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which issued an arrest warrant in 2011 on preliminary charges of crimes against humanity, murder and persecution for being part of the inner circle of his father’s regime.

Gaddafi’s lawyer said the ICC must now drop its case because of rules prohibiting a suspect from being tried twice for the same crimes.

“There was a trial, there was a conviction, he was sentenced to death. After that there was an amnesty,” he said. “I’m going to be filing an application that the case is inadmissible at the ICC under article 20 of the statute concerning double jeopardy.”