When last we checked in on Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son and once heir apparent of the Libyan dictator, he had been captured after a firefight in Southern Libya while trying to flee to Niger on November 19, 2011. He was subsequently flown to the town of Zintan in the western Mountains of Libya to be detained until he could be tried either by the International Criminal Court in The Hague or by the new Libyan government in Tripoli.
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| Seif al-Islam after his capture in November 2011. |
So whatever happened to Seif al-Islam?
Not much, apparently. As Reuters reported two weeks ago, he is still being held in Zintan by local forces who insist he must be tried in Libya, but don't trust the central government to do the job. Zintan's leaders say that if the Tripoli government isn't able to fix the security problems in the capital and fix its "corruption", they will bring Gaddafi to trial themselves before a revolutionary court. Until then, Seif al-Islam is "just like any other prisoner," with air conditioning, a television, time for reading, and time spent "outside in the sun."
Christian Caryl's piece in ForeignPolicy.com on the dispute is also worth the read, and provides some more details about his capture by a Zintani militia.
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| Yusuf Islam: Touring Brazil in November 2013 |
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| Seif al-Islam: No current plans to travel |
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