EFFORTS BY Libya’s new rulers to bring the Gadafy clan to justice received a blow last night after it emerged that several family members had managed to flee the country for neighbouring Algeria.
The Algerian foreign ministry said Col Gadafy’s wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and sons Hannibal and Mohammed and their children had entered Algeria at 8.45am yesterday, according to the state-run APS news agency.
Their fate remains unclear. Rebels have said that if any Gadafy relatives escape to Algeria they will seek their extradition, but the outcome of such a move would be uncertain.
Algeria has refused to recognise the authority of Libya’s new governing authority and has watched with alarm as autocratic regimes have fallen across the region over the past six months.
Algerian authorities earlier in the year crushed an attempt to mimic a Tunisian-style uprising in Algiers.
Libya’s new governing authority says it has no credible information about Col Gadafy’s whereabouts.
Several of his sons are thought to still be in Tripoli. There were reports last night that another of his sons, Khamis, had been killed in an air strike south of Tripoli, but these could not be immediately confirmed.
Earlier the National Transitional Council (NTC) justice minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the new leadership in Tripoli wanted to try Col Gadafy in Libya if and when he is caught, rather than hand him over to the International Criminal Court.
Mr Alagi said the demands of national justice took precedence over the indictment issued at the end of June by the Hague-based court, seeking the arrest of Col Gadafy for crimes against humanity.
The court also issued warrants for two of his top aides, his son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, and his intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Sanussi. The warrant refers to the early weeks of the conflict in February.
“We consider that the national court and justice system has priority over international justice,” the minister said.
Asked if he knew where Col Gadafy might be hiding, he replied: “We don’t comment on security issues, or where he might be.”
The whereabouts of Saif al-Islam, and of Col Gadafy’s other sons, Mutassim and Saadi, remain unknown, as do those of his second daughter, Hana, who was thought to have been killed in a US air strike in 1986 but was last week found to be working in a Tripoli hospital.
The director of the Sharwa Zarwa hospital in the centre of the capital has said that Hana Gadafy had ordered staff not to treat wounded rebels during the past six months. “She also stayed here sometimes during the night,” said Dr Ghassem Barouni.
Another son of Col Gadafy, Saif al-Arab, is thought to have been killed by a Nato strike in April. However, the reappearance of his second daughter after 25 years has left some members of the NTC sceptical of the claim. – (Guardian service)