Tripoli [Libya] : Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi will be running for the post of president, according to officials. He registered as a presidential candidate for the December 24 election, an official from the electoral commission said, reported The Jerusalem Post. Earlier in an interview with the New York Times in July 2021, Saif al-Gaddafi had said that he wanted to “restore the lost unity” of Libya. The 49-year-old, who before 2011 had been seen as his father’s presumed successor, said politicians in the decade since have brought Libyans “nothing but misery”. In 2011, after four decades in power, Muammar Gaddafi and his relatives were targeted in a popular uprising. Three of the dictator’s seven sons were killed in the uprising. Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi was captured by a Libyan militia in November 2011, days after his father was killed. Four years later, a Tripoli court sentenced him in absentia to death for crimes committed during the revolt. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has repeatedly asked for him to be handed over for trial. For years, the mystery had surrounded the precise whereabouts of a man wanted for war crimes by the ICC, reported France24. Until the interview, Saif had not been seen or heard from since June 2014, when he appeared via video link from Zintan in the west of the North African country during his trial by the Tripoli court, reported France24.
