ZINTAN, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam has been captured in Libya’s southern desert, scared and with only a handful of supporters, by fighters who vow to hold him in the mountain town of Zintan until there is a government to hand him over to.
Crowds across the country fired guns and hooted car horns to celebrate the seizure of the British-educated 39-year-old, who was once seen as a future ruler of the oil-producing desert state.
Fighters from Zintan said they stopped Saif al-Islam as he drove through the desert in a small convoy and detained him without a fight. They flew him to their western mountain home, accompanied on the plane by Reuters reporters.
Hundreds of people crowded round the plane when it landed, trapping him inside for more than an hour and raising fears he might suffer a similar fate to his father, who was beaten and shot after his capture a month ago today.
The Zintan rebels stopped people forcing their way on to the aircraft, bundled Saif al-Islam through the jostling crowd into a car and drove him away.
Prime Minister-designate Abdurrahim El-Keib promised Gaddafi’s son would face a fair trial and called his capture the “crowning” of the uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.
“We assure Libyans and the world that Saif al-Islam will receive a fair trial … under fair legal processes which our own people had been deprived of for the last 40 years,” Keib told a press conference in Zintan.
Saif al-Islam would be tried in Libya for serious crimes that carry the death penalty, Libya’s interim justice minister said.
“He has instigated others to kill, has misused public funds, threatened and instigated and even took part in recruiting and bringing in mercenaries,” Mohammed al-Alagy told Reuters.
Saif al-Islam, who had vowed to die fighting, was taken without a struggle, officials said.
“At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him,” Ahmed Ammar, one of his captors, told Reuters.
Saif al-Islam told a Reuters reporter on his plane his bandaged hand had been wounded in a NATO air strike a month ago. Asked if he was feeling all right, Gaddafi said simply: “Yes.”
The Zintan fighters, who make up one of Libya’s most powerful militia factions that hold effective power in a country still without a government, said they planned to keep him in Zintan until they could hand him over to the authorities.
Keib is scheduled to form a government by Tuesday, and the fate of Saif al-Islam will be an early test of its authority.
The incoming premier said Gaddafi’s son remained in the hands of “the revolutionaries in Zintan” and heaped praise on their fighters, acknowledging the authority the tribal militia continued to hold over its territory. “They (the Zintan fighters) will keep him in peace, take care of him. He will be treated as any human being with respect. He will get his day in court,” Keib said. Zintan could now use Saif al-Islam as a bargaining chip in the contest between rival groups for power in the new Libya. Fighters from Zintan made the decisive push on to Tripoli which ended Muammar Gaddafi’s rule, and they want to make sure their contribution is recognised.
Libyans want to try Saif al-Islam at home and believe he knows the location of billions of dollars of public money amassed by the Gaddafi family. His captors said they found only a few thousand dollars and a cache of rifles in seized vehicles.
The European Union urged Libyan authorities to ensure Saif al-Islam was brought to justice in cooperation with the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity.
Ammar told Reuters that his unit of 15 men in three vehicles, acting on a tip-off about a possible high-profile fugitive, had intercepted two cars carrying Gaddafi and four others in the desert about 70 km (40 miles) from the small oil town of Obari at about 1:30 a.m. (2330 GMT on Friday).
‘Servant of peace’
After the fighters fired in the air and forced the cars to stop, they asked the identity of the passengers. Saif al-Islam replied that he was “Abdelsalam” – a name that means “servant of peace” said the fighters who quickly recognised and seized him.
The fighters said they put him at ease and he accepted he would be taken to Zintan, a town south of Tripoli that was a stronghold of anti-Gaddafi rebels. Saif al-Islam appeared relatively at ease and was not handcuffed as he sat on a bench at the rear of the plane.
Wearing traditional robes with a scarf pulled over his face, Saif al-Islam had a heavy black beard and wore his rimless spectacles.
