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Saif al-Islam

A court in Libya has sentenced Saif al-Islam, son of Libya’s slain leader Muammar Gaddafi, to death by firing squad. Saif al-Islam (43) was sentenced in absentia yesterday by a court in the capital Tripoli, along with eight other senior members of Gaddafi’s administration, which was overthrown by rebels in 2011 with assistance from NATO.

The ruling can be appealed.

They were accused of war crimes and suppressing peaceful protests during the revolution, a state prosecutor said in early June.

The verdict comes at a time Libya has become ungovernable and is under the control of warlords. It is now one of the major bases for Islamist militants like Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The verdict was issued as US president Barack Obama was winding down his two-nation tour of Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively.

Obama yesterday delivered a speech at the African Union Headquarters attended by AU officials and civil society representatives.

Gaddafi was killed during Obama’s first term in office and it was ironic that as the sentence was being handed down Obama was at the AU headquarters.

The double standards in Obama’s speech regarding democracy were evident in yesterday’s address, as the US leader knows that his administration and its NATO allies have failed the Libyan people, despite calling Gaddafi a dictator.

At the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly, President Mugabe reminded Obama that his country was a member of NATO that had killed Colonel Gaddafi, and slammed the US and its allies for practising double standards in mourning (US ambassador J. Christopher) Stevens, condemning his killing in Libya while remaining mum on Gaddafi.

One Bulent Gokay said, “The killing of Gaddafi on October 20 2011 by an armed lynch mob and the victory of the rebel forces were quickly celebrated by United States president Barack Obama and other leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries, whose warplanes bombed the cities of Libya, under the guise of ‘protecting civilians.’”

Saif al-Islam’s trial started in April 2014 before fighting between rival factions resulted in a power struggle with two governments competing for authority — one based in Tripoli and the other one in Tobruk in the east.

He has been held since 2011 by a former rebel group in Zintan that opposes the Tripoli government.

Abdullah Senussi, the former intelligence chief, was among the Gaddafi officials sentenced, as well as former prime minister Baghdadi Ali Mahmudi.

Salah al-Bakkoush, a Tripoli-based political analyst, said he did not expect the rulings to have strong resonance in Libya.

“Libyans in general have so many problems right now that many were not even following the trial,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Those who participated in the struggle against the regime of Gaddafi will be following and will be happy.” —Herald Reporter/Agencies.