United Nations: A daughter and son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have moved from Algeria to Oman in breach of UN sanctions, a UN ambassador said on Tuesday.
The United Nations and international police organisation Interpol may soon issue a global alert over members of the Gaddafi family and other Gaddafi associates who are on the run and face UN sanctions.
Aisha Gaddafi and Mohammad Gaddafi face a travel ban and assets freeze imposed in the months before their father was overthrown and killed in October 2011.
Eugene-Richard Gasana, Rwanda’s UN ambassador and chairman of the Security Council committee that monitors sanctions on Libya, said the committee had been told of the pair’s move from Algeria, where they fled in 2011, to Oman.
Under UN sanctions rules, the committee should have approved any travel, but Gasana said this was not done and that UN sanctions experts are investigating.
Gasana said the sanctions committee and Interpol are finalising an accord on issuing joint special notices on Libya sanctions targets. He said the accord would come into force “in the coming weeks”.
Libya’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Abdul Aziz told reporters in Doha, Qatar in late March that Oman had granted asylum to Gaddafi’s widow, Safiya, and other family members.
Aisha Gaddafi helped in the defence of Saddam Hussain, Iraq’s toppled dictator, in the trial that led to his hanging. She had been a goodwill ambassador for the UN Development Programme, but the UN ended its agreement with her as Gaddafi cracked down on anti-government protesters. She gave birth on the border as the family members fled to Algeria. While in Algeria, she spoke several times to Arab media and denounced Libya’s new government. In November, she called on Libyans in an interview with a Syrian TV station to overthrow their new rulers.
Mohammad Gaddafi is the only child of Gaddafi and his first wife, Fatiha. He was Libya’s Olympic chief and was involved in the country’s telecommunications industry. The rebels reported capturing him after they moved into Tripoli, but soon after they said he had escaped from house arrest.
Their brother, Saif Al Islam, the first child by Gaddafi’s marriage to second wife Safiya, was the only sibling captured. Once the face of reform in Libya, he led his father’s drive to emerge from pariah status and was considered his heir apparent. Revolutionary forces found him deep in Libya’s southern desert a month after his father was killed in October 2011 and took him to the mountain city of Zintan, where he remains in their custody.
The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court has charged Saif Al Islam with crimes against humanity. Libyan authorities are appealing the international court’s right to try him, saying that he should face justice at home, but the court says Tripoli cannot give him a fair trial.
