The much-awaited trial of Saif al-Islam, the son of slain Libyan leader Col. Moammar Qadhafi, will begin in Libya in August, a top Libyan official told reporters on Monday.
According to Al-Seddik al-Sur of the state prosecutor's office, Qadhafi's spy chief Abdullah al-Senoussi, ex-Premier al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi and former spokesman Milad Daman will also stand trial along with Saif.
Al-Sur said the defendants face charges of forming criminal gangs, inciting rape and illegal detentions during the eight-month civil war that ousted Qadhafi, as well as charges related to crimes committed during the Qadhafi regime.
The autocratic regime of Col. Moammar Qadhafi was toppled in a NATO-backed armed rebellion in August 2011. Qadhafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years with an iron fist, was shot dead on October 20, 2011, by revolutionary fighters after he was captured from the outskirts of his hometown Sirte.
Subsequently, Saif was apprehended in Libya's southern desert in November 2011 by the rebel forces. He has since been held under detention in the mountain city of Zintan by the local militia that captured him. Notably, the militia group has not handed him over to the central government in Tripoli yet.
The latest developments come a week after Libya appealed against an International Criminal Court (ICC) order to try Saif in The Hague, Netherlands. Last month, the ICC had rejected a request filed by Libyan authorities to halt Saif's prosecution.
Saif has been indicted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 2011 revolution that toppled his father's regime. The ICC wants to try Saif in connection with his role in attacks on protesters and rebels during the uprising, but the Libyans insisted that he should be tried in the north African nation itself.
Libyan authorities had filed a challenge to the admissibility of the case against Saif at the ICC on May 1, 2012. In their challenge, Libyan authorities insisted that they themselves were investigating Saif with the intention of prosecuting him. They also questioned ICC jurisdiction in the case, pointing out that the court's founding principles allow it to intervene only in cases where local legal systems are not up to the job.
But ICC's pre-trial chamber ruled on May 3 that Libya had not provided enough evidence to show that it was investigating the same case as the one before the U.N.-backed court. The chamber also urged Libyan authorities to hand over Saif to the ICC for prosecution, noting that they have so far failed to secure the transfer of the suspect to state custody.
Notably, the international community remains concerned whether Saif would get a fair trial in Libya despite repeated assurances by authorities there. Besides, Saif has said that he wants to be tried at the ICC.
Incidentally, Saif is also facing separate case on charges of trading information threatening Libya's national security. That trial, which opened at a court in Zintan in January, has been postponed indefinitely.
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