Muammar Gaddafi faces a potential war crimes trial at The Hague after the International Criminal Court on Monday issued arrest warrants for the Libyan leader, along with his son Saif al-Islam and his military intelligence chief General Abdullah al-Sanoussi. The warrants allege that all three men were involved in ordering security forces to open fire on unarmed protesters last February, turning a peaceful protest movement into a four-month civil war.
The arrest warrants turn the regime’s top three figures into fugitives in all of the 150 countries that recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. The Gaddafi warrant claims that he ordered his security forces to “deter and quell by all means the civilian demonstration against his regime,” while his son Saif — who until last February was trumpeted by Western leaders as Libya’s great reformist hope — is alleged to have managed the logistics of the crackdown, effectively acting as his father’s Prime Minister. “His contributions were essential,” the warrant says of the younger Gaddafi, adding that he was “the most influential person with [Muammar Gaddafi’s] inner circle, and as such, he exercised control of crucial parts of the state apparatus”. U.N. investigators believe hundreds of civilians were killed in Benghazi, Misratah, Tripoli and other cities during the second half of February, when security forces fired live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators.
Gaddafi is only the second sitting head of state
