Reports suggest the late Libyan leader's son, who is wanted for crimes against humanity and was said to be Gaddafi's chosen successor, has been freed under amnesty.
ADVERTISEMENTSaif al-Islam, the favoured son of the late deposed Libyan leader Colonel Muamar Gaddafi, has reportedly been freed by his militia captors.
The former political figure, who was said to have been his father’s chosen successor before the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, had been held by the group in the town of Zintan for the past six years.
Although previous reports of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s release have proved to be false, the group holding him announced on saturday that he had been freed under an amnesty.
He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity during his father’s unsuccessful attempts to put down the uprising in Libya that ended Gaddafi’s rule.
The 44-year-old was sentenced to death by firing squad in a trial of 30 Gaddafi associates in Tripoli in 2015 but his captors refused to hand him over.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone from the government in Tripoli has confirmed his release, or the amnesty agreement under which it took place.
The only evidence thus far is a press release on the militia group Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion’s Facebook page, which attributed the amnesty to an act of parliament.