The guilty verdict to Gaddafi’s son and Libya Jamahiriya’s former military intelligence chief along with his eight associates was announced in the absence of Saif al-Islam who is reportedly held captive by rivalry Islamist group based in the city of Zintan, Western Libya.
What added more confusion to the whole story and totally devalued the very idea of the just and fair trial was that the Tripoli court decision was condemned by Libya’s legitimate government based in the city of Tobruk.
It was also denounced by human rights activists, United Nations and the Council of Europe which came up with statements saying that Saif al-Islam should be handed over to International Criminal Court (ICC) to face war crimes charges.
Ironically, soft-spoken Saif al-Islam who got his PHD degree in London was once a darling of the West who developed a reputation of a high-flyer in European elite.
Evgeny Satanovsky, head of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow (studio guest), Rod Thornton, Senior Lecturer at Defense Studies Department (King’s College London) and Marwan Kobalan, associate researcher at the Arab Center for research and policy studies (Doha) share their insights on the issue.
