Gaddafi’s son and intelligence chief ‘want to surrender’
“They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,” Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters from Libya.
Saif al-Islam is wanted by the war crimes court, as was his late father. There is also a warrant out for Senussi.
Saif al-Islam has been on the run since Libyan forces overran his father’s home town of Sirte at the weekend. He is thought to be somewhere near Libya’s southern border with Niger.
Mlegta said that his information came from intelligence sources who told him that Saif al-Islam and Senussi were trying to broker a deal to surrender to the court through a neighbouring country, which he did not name.
They had concluded that it was not safe for them to remain in Libya, to go to Algeria, or to cross into Niger, where one of Gaddafi’s sons is already sheltering. Other family members are in Algeria.
“They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they are or to go anywhere,” Mlegta said.
In any case, Niger was asking for too much money for them to stay.
Meanwhile, Libya’s interim leader urged NATO yesterday to maintain its involvement in the country until the end of the year, though the Western military alliance that helped topple Gaddafi is keen to wind up its formal mission within days.
A meeting of NATO ambassadors, postponed to tomorrow for further discussion with the NTC and UN, was still due to endorse a preliminary decision to halt the Libya mission on October 31, a spokeswoman for the group said.
