Saif al-Islam Gaddafi captured in Libyan desert as he tries to flee country

International Criminal Court calls on the country's transitional authority to hand over the late dictator's high profile son

guardian.co.uk, Peter Beaumont and Chris Stephen, Saturday 19 November 2011

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi sitting in a plane in Zintan, concealing his right hand
 which was injured in a Nato bombing. Photograph by Ismail Zitouni/Reuters
Photograph: Ismail Zitouni/Reuters

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the last remaining member of the Gaddafi family still at large in Libya, has been arrested in the southern desert and taken to the town of Zintan. He was caught while apparently attempting to flee the country.

Video footage, shown on Libyan television and distributed by the country's transitional authority, pictured him wrapped in a brown blanket and lying on a mattress. He was holding up three heavily bandaged fingers from injuries sustained in a Nato bombing raid a month ago as he fled the town of Bani Walid the day before his father's death.

The late Muammar Gaddafi's heir-apparent was looking thinner and had allowed the hair to grow on his usually shaven head; he had also grown a beard. News of his capture was greeted by celebratory gunfire in Tripoli.

"This is the final chapter of the Libyan drama," information minister Mahmoud Shammam said. "We will put him on trial in Libya and he will be judged by Libyan law for his crimes."

Saif will be put on trial in Libya for serious crimes that carry the death penalty, Libya's interim justice minister said on Saturday. "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-Alagi said. He added that the charges against Saif carried the death penalty.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, said: "I welcome the arrest of Saif al-Islam. This represents another significant step forward in the transition to a new, democratic Libya. He must now be held to account for his actions, and face trial on the charges brought against him, including by the International Criminal Court."

Ahmed Ammar, one of Saif's captors, said that his unit of 15 men in three vehicles, acting on a tip-off, had intercepted two cars carrying Saif and four others near the small oil town of Obari at about 1.30am on Friday.

After the fighters fired into the air and ground in order to halt the cars, they asked the identity of the travellers. The man in charge replied that he was "Abdelsalam" – meaning "servant of peace". But the fighters quickly recognised him as Saif and seized him without a fight.

"At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him," Ammar said. Bashir Thaelba, a Zintan commander, told reporters in the capital that Saif would be held in Zintan until there was a government – due to be formed within days – to whom he could be handed over.

Marek Marczynski of Amnesty International urged the Libyans to transfer Saif to the ICC base in the Netherlands as soon as possible. "The ICC has an arrest warrant out for him and that is the correct thing to do. He must be brought before a judge as soon as possible," he said.

Saif, who studied at the London School of Economics, was once regarded as the reform-minded and pro-western face of the regime. He gained notoriety early in the war when he delivered a bloodthirsty 40-minute television statement to Libyans warning that the regime planned to "eradicate" its enemies."

He was wanted on an international warrant from the ICC for crimes against humanity, including his indirect involvement in the deaths of opponents of his father's regime, charges he rejected through an intermediary who contacted the court last month.

Following the death of his father and brother Mutassim last month, Saif, aged 39, and former intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi were the last two senior figures to be sought by the new government.

A spokesman for the Zintan brigades, Bashir al-Tlayeb, who first announced the capture in Tripoli, said the National Transitional Council would decide where Saif would be tried. He also said that there was still no information about Senussi's whereabouts.

An ICC spokesman stressed that Libya had a legal obligation to co-operate with the international arrest warrant. "First we have to verify if it really is him and that he's actually been arrested this time," Fadi El Abdallah, said. "If they decide they want to try the suspect in Libya instead of at the ICC, there's a necessary process."

He said the Libyans could formally request that the case be transferred, then ICC judges would make a decision. "The main criteria is that he generally be prosecuted for the same crimes," the spokesman said. "For us there's an obligation, a legal obligation under international law, for the national government to co-operate with the ICC."

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