* Gaddafi son said ready to turn himself in
* Intelligence chief also proposing deal with ICC
* Nowhere else for them to go, says Libyan official
(Adds background)
By Samia Nakhoul
ABU DHABI, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's fugitive son
Saif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi
are proposing to hand themselves into the International Criminal
Court in The Hague, a senior Libyan military official with the
National Transitional Council said on Wednesday.
"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 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, or to go to Algeria or Niger, two countries where
Gaddafi family members are already sheltering.
"They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they
are or to go anywhere," Mlegta said.
In any case, they said that Niger was asking for too much
money for them to stay.
Neither the ICC spokesman or the prosecutor's office was
immediately available to comment on the report.
In June the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, Saif
al-Islam and Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity after
the U.N. Security Council referred the Libyan situation to the
court in February.
All three were charged with crimes against humanity for the
Libyan regime's violent crackdown on protesters in February in
what ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said was part of a
"pre-determined" to stamp out the unrest.
It was only the second time that the U.N. Security Council
had referred a conflict to the ICC, the world's first permanent
war crimes court.
The Security Council previously referred the crisis in
Sudan's Darfur region to the ICC in 2005.
(Reporting by Samia Nakhoul; Additional reporting by Aaron
Gray-Block in The Hague; Writing by Giles Elgood)
© 2025 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.