Trial of Libyan ex-dictator sons to open in April

The trial of two sons as well as dozens of aides to Libya’s slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi is set to open in mid-April on charges ranging from murder to embezzlement, a judicial official says.

In a surprise announcement on Monday, Seddik al-Sour, a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office, said 30 former Libyan officials including Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam and Saadi, are slated to go on trial from April 14.

Libya’s ex-spy chief Abdullah Senussi as well as former premiers Baghdadi al-Mahmudi and Bouzid Dorda are also among the Gaddafi-era officials who are to stand trial next month.

According to the Libyan official, the date for the trial was set at a Monday hearing session which was “open to the public.”

The charges against Gaddafi’s sons and other former officials include murder, complicity in incitement to rape and kidnappings, embezzlement of public funds and acts harmful to national unity.

Libyans rose up against Muammar Gaddafi’s four-decade rule in February 2011 and deposed him in August 2011. He was slain on October 20 of the same year.

Saif al-Islam, who served as Gaddafi’s de facto prime minister, has been in the custody of a local militia in the western mountain city of Zintan where the writ of the central government runs weakly. Sour said he could stand trial via video conference from his detention cell in Zintan.

The 40-year-old was captured in November 2011 while trying to flee the country.

In July, the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that Libya had to extradite Saif al-Islam to The Hague in order to face charges of crimes against humanity, stressing that Libya could not give Gaddafi’s son a fair trial.