Revolutie in Libië #115: Waar de veiligheidschef ook is gearresteerd.

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Former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi captured

TRIPOLI Nov 20 (Reuters) - Abdullah al-Senussi inspired fear and hatred among ordinary Libyans for decades as the intelligence chief, right-hand man and brother-in-law of Muammar Gaddafi before the Libyan dictator's fall to a popular insurrection in August.

After three months on the run, Senussi was captured in Libya's remote southern desert on Sunday by transitional government (NTC) fighters.

Senussi, the last significant former regime figure still at large, was trapped one day after the capture of Gaddafi's heir-apparent son Saif al-Islam and a month after the elder Gaddafi was seized and lynched by vengeful NTC gunmen.

The International Criminal Court indicted Senussi along with Muammar Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam in June this year for war crimes over alleged armed attacks on civilians in anti-Gaddafi regions shortly after the onset of the uprising in February.

Soon after the revolt blew up, media reports said that Senussi had joined then-foreign minister Moussa Koussa in defecting. These reports about al-Senussi were later denied.

A U.S. national security official said U.S. government agencies were aware that Senussi, together with Saif al-Islam, had been involved in making some early peace overtures to rebels but they were rejected.

ABU SALIM

Senussi built up a reputation as the brutal enforcer of Gaddafi's will when he was the chief of internal security during a deadly purge of regime opponents in the early 1980s.

Many Libyans also held Senussi responsible for the 1996 killing of some 1,200 inmates at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison.

Senussi was a colonel in Gaddafi's armed forces and the powerful director of Libya's intelligence apparatus after previous posts as head of military intelligence and deputy chief of the external intelligence agency.

He was one of several Libyan officials who were convicted, in absentia, in a French court in 1999 over the bombing of a French airliner. The plane came down in Niger the previous year, killing all 170 people on board.

A leaked U.S. embassy cable from 2008 described Senussi, who is married to a sister of Gaddafi's wife, as playing a "significant role" as an adviser to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Senussi is a member of the Magarha tribe, believed to be the second-biggest in Libya to which Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted and jailed for helping blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, also belongs.

U.S. cables published by WikiLeaks site said Senussi asked U.S. diplomats to help smooth the way for al-Megrahi's release from a Scottish jail, but they demurred. Megrahi was released in 2009 and returned home to a hero's welcome.

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Zintan's hold on Saif al-Islam reflects Libya divisions

ZINTAN, Libya Nov 20 (Reuters) - The decision by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's captors to take him to a secret location in the remote Libyan mountain town of Zintan rather than the capital Tripoli reflects a wider problem of powerful local militia and a weak central government.

"He will stay here because it is a safe place for him," the head of Zintan's military council Osama al-Juwali told Reuters on Sunday, adding he would remain for the foreseeable future.

"I also think that Saif should be tried in Zintan," he said.

Three months after Muammar Gaddafi fled the capital, Libya's cabinet has yet to be announced and its prime minister is dithering, under pressure from myriad rebel commanders all wanting a piece of the political pie.

It was Zintan fighters who caught Gaddafi's son and heir apparent and a Zintan pilot who flew him to the impoverished town in the Western, or Nafusa, Mountains, just a couple of hours drive south of the capital.

After the older Gaddafi was brutally beaten and eventually killed in his hometown of Sirte, Libya's revolutionary fighters were scolded by the international community.

Zintan - distrustful of other militias in Libya - is keen not to repeat previous mistakes and clearly wants to keep hold of its prize catch.

FARMHOUSE MEETING

Zintan commanders, Saif al-Islam's captors and residents say the reason he is being held here, and not under the command of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the capital, is to protect him from the bloody fate of his father.

"We had to fly Saif to Zintan because it is the only place to guarantee his safety," said Farid Abu Ali, a Zintan fighter who was sent from Tripoli to transfer him to Zintan from the Saharan town of Obari, near where he was captured early on Saturday morning.

"If he was taken to Tripoli, or anywhere else, there is a fear he could be killed by angry fighters who want revenge," he added.

On Sunday Abdullah Mehdi, a Zintan fighter and pilot of the Russian-built military aircraft that flew Saif al-Islam to Zintan, hosted his aircrew and some of the fighters who helped in the capture at his farmhouse on a cliff overlooking the town.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, the group chatted excitedly about the day before.

"Saif told me that he wanted to come to Zintan," said the pilot. "He knew he would be fine here."

Mehdi, 49, defected from the Libyan air force early this year to fight Gaddafi's forces on the outskirts of Zintan.

In previous interviews, he became livid recalling the shelling by Gaddafi forces of his mother's farmhouse in Zintan, but having captured the dictator's hated son, he seemed calmed and pensive.

"The story of Saif is a tragedy. His father is dead, his brothers are dead and his mother and sister have fled," he said in a voice made hoarse by chain-smoking.

When Saif al-Islam left Mehdi's plane on Saturday to crowds of angry Zintan residents, the pilot was seen holding his hand.

"Zintan has a long history of fighting. Our grandfathers and generations before have told us to treat prisoners well," he said.

Zintan is an impoverished town of around 35,000 people but is notorious in Libya for the voracity of its fighters, both against the Italian occupation of Libya in the early 20th century and this year during the Libyan revolution.

Gaddafi's forces never made it into Zintan during the war, but pounded the town with Grad rockets from a distance of 5 km (3 miles). Some of Zintan's sandstone and concrete houses, built on a large plateau, have entire walls missing from the attack.

"Gaddafi will never enter two places: Zintan and paradise," a local saying proclaims.

The group of Zintan fighters who caught Gaddafi's heir and their colleagues who flew from the capital to airlift him say they are bound by a 200-year-old tribal agreement between the Zintan tribe and his, the Gaddafa, which guarantees the protection of prisoners of war.

"It is an ancient agreement, but it still holds," said Abu Ali.

OCCUPYING FORCE?

Zintan people are known as travellers and people from the modest hilltop town can be found all around Libya.

Fighters from Zintan fought all over the country during the war and many have stayed away from home, they say, to protect oil fields and patrol the country's borders.

Other groups around Libya have at times complained that Zintan fighters act like an occupying force but residents here say their motives are patriotic.

"We are like wolves," said a Zintan fighter on Sunday. "We roam and protect our country."

Luis Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court which has issued an arrest warrant for Saif al-Islam on charges of crimes against humanity, is expected to visit Zintan next week.

But with the Tripoli-based interim government having to accept that the proud Zintan fighters can keep their prisoner of war until further arrangements are made, Saif al-Islam may not be leaving the arid, mountain town any time soon.

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Libya vows it, not ICC, will try Saif, Senussi

TRIPOLI Nov 20 (Reuters) - Libya stood firm on Sunday over the trial of Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, saying its courts could judge him fairly, defying the International Criminal Court, which says it is its right try him at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

As news came in of the capture of Gaddafi's feared intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, officials said he, too, would be given a fair trial in Libya.

The ICC has indicted Saif al-Islam for allegedly ordering the killing of unarmed protesters during the uprising that brought an end to his father's 42-year rule. It has indicted Senussi on the same charge of crimes against humanity.

A month after the elder Gaddafi - also indicted by the ICC - was captured, tormented and killed, Saif al-Islam was caught in the country's southern desert on Saturday, where he had grown out his beard and donned the flowing robes of local nomadic tribesmen. Senussi was caught in the same region a day later.

The government has said it will try Saif al-Islam in Libya, but with ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's imminent arrival in the country bringing Libya's international obligations into focus, ministers insisted their courts were up to the job.

"The Libyan judicial system is capable of prosecuting people of Saif's stature," Libyan interim justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi told Reuters. "The important thing is to ensure a fair trial. We have been preparing for this for months."

Alagi has said he does not want to retain his post in a new interim government due to be formed this week.

The ICC is only supposed to try cases which nation states are unwilling or unable to prosecute, and here it is the strength of Libya's judicial system that is in doubt.

Many observers says that after Gaddafi spent four decades hollowing out Libya's public institutions, the judiciary can not handle cases as sensitive and complex as these, least of all in the poisoned atmosphere that follows a civil war.

"It has no viable judicial system. Any system that existed was deliberately eradicated over four decades," said Richard Dicker, international law expert at Human Rights Watch.

Like many countries, Libya does not have the offence of crimes against humanity on its statute books. In a state that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, there are also obvious concerns about security and the rule of law generally.

A U.N. Security Council resolution passed in February in response to the crackdown on protesters imposes a duty on the Libyan authorities to cooperate with the ICC. The court says that Libya must either hand over Saif al-Islam or obtain the ICC's permission to hold a trial in Libya.

POLITICAL HEADACHE

Given the paltry state of Libya's institutions, it is unlikely that Tripoli can convince the ICC it is capable of holding a trial that will meet international standards.

To make matters worse for the prime minister designate, Abdurrahim El-Keib, who is picking an interim cabinet before elections next year to a constituent assembly, public opinion is strongly in favour of trying Gaddafi's strongmen in Libya.

"Of course he should be tried in Libya. It's not just me who thinks so. All Libyans want him to be tried here," football player Qais Abdel Nasser, 29, said on Saturday in Benghazi, where the uprising against Gaddafi began in February.

"I think the ICC will just keep him away from Libyans and he will have a comfortable life. He'll still be able to communicate with Gaddafi supporters from inside prison," he added.

Facing such a difficult choice between its international legal obligation to go through The Hague, which is unlikely to allow a trial in Libya any time soon, and the political reality, Keib will be under pressure to find an acceptable compromise.

There are, however, few obvious alternatives to trying Gaddafi and Senussi at The Hague, which risks angering many Libyans, and holding a trial in Libya without ICC authorisation, which is likely to upset the West, violate international law, and provoke accusations of victors' justice.

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said a third option could be for the ICC to hold trials in Libya rather than at its Dutch headquarters, though how that would work in detail was unclear

"It is possible for ICC judges to organise a trial in the country if deemed appropriate," El Abdallah said.

IRAQI EXPERIMENT

One potential model for a local trial with international input might be those held in Iraq under a special tribunal set up during the U.S. military occupation to try Saddam Hussein and his senior aides and generals in Baghdad.

Michael Scharf, law professor at Case Western Reserve University, was an adviser who helped train Iraqi judges for those trials. He noted that the ICC indictments, a factor not present in Iraq, made for different choices in Libya, and he said that handing the suspects to The Hague would make sense.

To seek international assistance for trials in Libya, he said, the government might find the going hard unless it abolished the death penalty - unlikely to be a popular move at home - since many international jurists would steer clear of involvement with a system engaged in capital punishment.

And, saying that the Iraqi tribunal was "ruined" by government interference, notably in the selection of judges, Scharf added: "It's not clear that the government and the courts in Libya can get that kind of independence and separation, and that would be a real problem for them.

"The easiest thing for them is just to surrender them to the international tribunal - they'd get all sorts of kudos, the international community would applaud them for doing so and then if they want they could have trials of people at a lower level."

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 10:49 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:
De man heeft namelijk geen enkele misdaad begaan

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 10:49 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:
natuurlijk wil Ocampo liever dat Saif in Libie "berecht" wordt, ook al is het zeker dat hij nooit een eerlijk proces zou krijgen en gewoon als symbool wordt verhangen straks.

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 11:08 schreef Goofjansen het volgende:

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ik hoop dat ie mij dan het nummer van zijn Zwitserse nummerrekening geeft, het schijnt dat juist Saif enkele miljarden dollars heeft weggezet

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/(...)-miljard-dollar-weg/

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 11:03 schreef waht het volgende:

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Bron?

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 11:23 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:

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vertel jij maar eens welke misdaden hij wel heeft begaan met bronnen erbij. De enige "misdaad" is dat hij een symbool is van het oude regime en daarom dus al zal moeten boeten, met een eerlijke rechtsgang heeft dit niets te maken. Het iCC is maar al te blij als hij niet naar den Haag komt, omdat er gewoon niets tegen hem bewezen kan worden.

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 11:20 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:

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Wat is er mis als je je spaargeld op een buitenlandse rekening zet, daarvoor mag hij worden opgehangen? Er staat in het artikel dat je aanhaalt overigens helemaal niets over Saif.

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 14:02 schreef waht het volgende:

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Hij was zoon van een dictator. Dan mogen we redelijkerwijs aannemen dat hij zich als beest heeft gedragen.

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 14:11 schreef Goofjansen het volgende:

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Het is geld van het Lybische volk, om wegen aan te leggen en brood te kopen, niet voor de hoertjes van Saif

Ik vraag me altijd af wat er met het gestolen geld van gedode dictators op Zwitserse nummerrekeningen gebeurt
Ik denk dat het er tot in lengte van dagen op blijft staan, tot na 100 jaar de bank het aan het eigen vermogen toevoegd

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 15:13 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:

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Wie zegt dat het niet gewoon zijn eigen geld heeft gestort? Saif was in feite gewoon ambtenaar, het is flauwekul om nu te zeggen stort het geld maar terug, want je salaris was te hoog.

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Kaddafi was viagraverslaafd
De seksuele escapades van de wijlen Libische oud-leider Muammar Kaddafi eindigden vaak met een tripje naar het ziekenhuis. Kaddafi gebruikte namelijk graag geweld tussen de lakens, zo blijkt uit onthullingen van zijn voormalige kok, die vorige maand een boekje opendeed over het privéleven van zijn oud-werkgever. Het AD berichtte hier gisteren over. De kok meldde onder andere ook dat Kaddafi een fervent gebruiker was van viagra. Geregeld nam hij meerdere pillen in op één dag. Zijn verpleegster moedigde hem zelfs aan zijn dosis te verlagen. Kaddafi was bovendien geobsedeerd door penislengte.
Hij wilde een apparaat om de zijne wat te vergroten.
Kaddafi haalde zijn bedpartners vooral van een nabij zijn paleis gelegen universiteitscampus.
Andere prooien waren - maar dat was reeds bekend - zijn vrouwelijke lijfwachten en privéverpleegster

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 15:28 schreef HAKIM_1988 het volgende:

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Wat voor eigen geld hadden de Gaddafi's?
Al hun investeringen kun je terug lijden naar de olie.

Laat het nou die olie zijn die van ALLE Libiers is.

In Benghazi hebben ze niet eens een fatsoenlijk rioolsysteem.

Dan lijkt me een salaris van dergelijk niveau niet erg gepast.

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 17:56 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:

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Kadaffi was gewoon een sergeant die de macht heeft gegrepen, de opbrengsten van de olie hadden besteed moeten worden aan wegen en scholen

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Op maandag 21 november 2011 15:28 schreef HAKIM_1988 het volgende:

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Wat voor eigen geld hadden de Gaddafi's?
Al hun investeringen kun je terug lijden naar de olie.

Laat het nou die olie zijn die van ALLE Libiers is.

In Benghazi hebben ze niet eens een fatsoenlijk rioolsysteem.

Dan lijkt me een salaris van dergelijk niveau niet erg gepast.

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Op woensdag 23 november 2011 19:15 schreef BloodhoundFromHell het volgende:
Khadaffi heeft het land van de grond af opgebouwd, ondanks alle tegenwerking die hij kreeg van het westen. Hij heeft van het land een relatief welvarend land gemaakt met goed onderwijs en gezondheidszorg. Het land bleef ook gevrijwaard van interne onlusten en er was stabiliteit. Dit is allemaal op het spel gezet. De Libische bevolking wordt door de misdadige oorlog die de NAVO voerde onder het mom van het beschermen van de bevolking juist de afgrond ingeduwd. De toekomst van Libië zie ik nu zeer somber in.

Ik snap werkelijk waar niet waar die euforie in dit topic vandaan komt. Men trapt met open ogen in alle propaganda, of heeft persoonlijk een appeltje met de Khadaffi's te schillen.

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Op donderdag 24 november 2011 11:30 schreef HetwasietsmeteenF het volgende:

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Ik heb al vaker gereageerd in deze reeks, omdat dit soort argumenten aangedragen blijven worden. Toch nog maar een laatste keer: de gezondheidszorg was NIET goed. Ja, een paar ziekenhuizen die alleen door de elite betaald konden worden waren goed, maar toch gingen vrijwel alle Libiers voor medische ingrepen naar Tunesie of Malta. En ook het onderwijs was ronduit slecht. Dat bijna alle Libiers onderwijs volgden en geletterd waren, betekent nog niet dat het onderwijs voor de normale Libier ook goed was. Er werd alleen maar les gegeven in het groene boekje en andere propaganda. Er was een verbod op boeken die democratie aanmoedigden en het internet werd door de overheid beheerd, dus andere informatie verkrijgen was vrijwel onmogelijk. Vrouwenrechten? Op papier misschien, maar je kwam geen vrouwen tegen in overheidsfuncties. De geheime dienst die overal is en om angst te zaaien mensen midden op de dag op drukke straten en met grof geweld oppakken, executies die maandelijks plaatsvonden en de politie die uit verveling random mensen aanhoudt en hardhandig uit auto's sleuren (totdat ze erachter komen dat ze met een buitenlander van doen hebben, zoals ik zelf heb meegemaakt).

En nee, deze mening heb ik niet via propaganda verkregen, maar ik heb anderhalf jaar geleden zelf een aantal maanden in Libie gezeten en heb in die tijd genoeg gezien en gehoord (wat overigens niet betekent dat ik niet bezorgd ben over hoe alles nu zal verlopen).

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Foreign Office asked Oxford to admit Gaddafi son as student

Foreign Office lobbied Oxford university to accept Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam to encourage a rapprochement with Libya, an inquiry has found

The Foreign Office lobbied Oxford university to accept Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam as a student in the hope of encouraging a rapprochement with Libya, an inquiry has found.

An investigation by Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, has underlined the support shown by the British government and UK firms for the dictator's son as companies scented opportunities to do business with Libya.

The inquiry was set up to investigate the London School of Economics' links with Libya, including a decision to accept a £1.5m donation from a charity run by Gaddafi's son to fund a north Africa research programme.

The inquiry finds a "disconcerting number of failures in communication and governance" in the LSE's relations with the Libyan regime. The scandal erupted as Libyans rose up against the Gaddafi regime and led to the resignation of director Sir Howard Davies.

But it also looks at the burgeoning commercial interests which lay behind Saif's relationship with the LSE. The inquiry reports that the arms firm BAE Systems sent an employee from its marketing team to work with Saif al-Islam.

This employee helped Saif's application to study at the LSE, where he was accepted in August 2002. The BAE employee was formally seconded to Saif's charity by BAE – which continued to pay the employee's salary – between 2004 and 2006.

BAE told the inquiry that at the time Libya was "seemingly coming into the fold" and the government was keen that British business should be poised to deal with the Gaddafi regime. BAE said it was not preparing to sell arms to Libya but meet civil requirements such as airport radar.

In the spring of 2002 a senior civil servant at the Foreign Office asked Oxford university if Saif could take a master's degree course. "It was made clear … that the FCO would appreciate help in this case since Libya was opening up to the West again." The head of Oxford's department of international development told the FCO that the application would be "unlikely to prosper … because Saif had no social science training, and his prior degree did not meet the requisite quality standard".

The FCO dropped its request, the inquiry was told.

The LSE donation was channelled through Saif's charity but its original source may have been three private firms. Woolf said he could not rule out that the money had been paid as bribes to Saif al-Islam.

According to an email from Saif's personal assistant, the original source of the donation were three companies – Turkish, Italian and Scottish – bidding for construction and engineering work in Libya.

The Scottish firm specialises in "seeking commercial opportunity in Libya, especially in the military sphere", according to an internal LSE note.

"Knowledge that the gift was being funded by private companies which carried out work in Libya ought to have raised red flags," the report says.

Saif is now in custody in Libya after being captured in the country's southern desert earlier this month.

The inquiry report says it was an LSE academic, Professor David Held, who "first approached Saif about the possibility of funding his centre for Global Governance in December 2008".

The gift offered was of £1.5m in tranches of £300,000 over five years. Periodic payments were to be made annually.

The report says: "This was not a one-off donation but the founding of a relationship between the school and the donor, which is not unusual. However, bearing in mind the volatility of the Gaddafi regime, the gift involved a substantial risk because of the length of the relationship."

A decision was made that the gift would not come from Saif directly but from "private sector sources".

This step "became essential to Held's presentation of the gift. Unless the money could be shown as coming to the foundation from private sources it could have been seen as unacceptable money from the Libyan state." Lord Woolf's report says that the "private aspect of this gift was particularly troublesome".

He writes: "I am not satisfied (and it could not have been demonstrated to council) that the money which was the source of the donation to the LSE from Saif's foundation was not the result of payments to influence Saif to look upon private companies with favour."

He quotes a former British ambassador to Libya saying that it was common knowledge that Saif was "deep into acting as an intermediary for major business interests in Libya". The donation was accepted despite internal protest. The inquiry noted a warning by Fred Halliday, a Middle East expert at the LSE, in 2009, that: "Persons without any deep knowledge of Libyan or Arab politics had attempted to persuade him that Libya was changing. However, in 2009 Libya remained one of the most dictatorial and opaque of Arab regimes."

Woolf said the LSE's director at the time, Sir Howard Davies, bore "responsibility for what went wrong".

Davies resigned in March after the university's reputation was battered by its links with Libya.

Held, professor of political science at the LSE, was an academic adviser to the toppled dictator's son when he studied at the London university and was director of the research programme funded by Saif al-Islam's charity.

Saif al-Islam was allowed to lay out "objectives and expectations" for the programme, according to leaked LSE documents.

Woolf writes: "I come to no conclusions as to whether there was or would have been excessive influence by the donor over the use of the funds from Saif's foundation. However, what has been made plain is that proper structures of governance are needed to protect academic integrity against influence from the interests of private donors."

Woolf's inquiry looked at a range of connections between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime, including:

• A £2.2m contract to train Libyan civil servants and professionals. £1.5m of this money was received.

• A payment of £20,000 for tuition of the head of the Libyan investment authority.

• A payment to the university of $50,000 after Davies gave advice to Libya's sovereign wealth fund in 2007.

• An award from Gaddafi's charity of £22,857 to cover travel costs for academic speakers to travel to Libya.

A separate inquiry has been conducted into allegations of plagiarism in Saif al-Islam's PhD thesis by the University of London, which awarded the degree. This has concluded that the PhD should not be revoked.

The Woolf inquiry said, however, that: "Saif's background meant he could procure a level of assistance which would not be open to the ordinary PhD student."

The North Africa Research Programme was suspended when the Libyan uprising began this year, while LSE Global Governance was closed at the end of July. The LSE has agreed to put £300,000 – equivalent to the cash it has received from the Gaddafi foundation to set up the research programme – into a scholarship for north African students.

The LSE has appointed a new director, the US sociologist Craig Calhoun, who starts next September.