Saif ‘can be tried at home with Hague's involvement'

Tripoli: The International Criminal Court's prosecutor said yesterday that Libya can put Muammar Gaddafi's son on trial at home, but that The Hague court's judges must be involved in the case.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo was in Tripoli yesterday for talks with Libya's new leaders about their plans for Saif Al Islam, who was captured Saturday in southern Libya and is being held by fighters in the mountain town of Zintan, southwest of the capital. The ICC has charged him with crimes against humanity. Libya's new leaders have said they will try Saif at home even though they have yet to set up a court system.

"Saif is captured so we are here to ensure cooperation," Moreno-Ocampo told reporters after arriving in Libya. "If they [Libyans] prosecute the case, we will discuss with them how to inform the judges, and they can do it, but our judges have to be involved."

A local spokesman for Libya's new leadership says former intelligence chief Abdullah Al Sanoussi was also captured over the weekend and is being held in the southern city of Sabha.

The ICC indicted the two men along with Gaddafi in June for unleashing a campaign of murder and torture to suppress the uprising against the Gaddafi regime that broke out in mid-February.

Rights groups have called on Libya to hand both men over for trial in The Hague, and Moreno-Ocampo stressed that even if Libyans want to try the two men in Libya they must still cooperate with the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. Libya is obliged by a Security Council resolution to work with the court, but that does not necessarily preclude a trial in Libya.