AFRICA DIPLOMATIC

Brussels 14.11.2021 The son and heir of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi announced Sunday, November 14, his candidacy for the country’s presidential election next month, Libya’s election agency said.

Seif al-Islam submitted his candidacy papers in the southern town of Sabah, the agency said in a statement.

Gadhafi’s son was captured by fighters late in 2011, the year when a popular uprising toppled Gadhafi after more than 40 years in power. Moammar Gadhafi was later killed under suspicious circumstances, while attempting to flee NATO operations in Libya sky.

“The death of Moammar Gaddafi, on October 20, in Sirte raises one of the questions which has to be clarified. There are serious suspicions about it being in fact a war crime” said Luis Moreno-Campo, the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Le Figaro newpaper on 16 December 2011.

Seif al-Islam (49) was released in June 2017 after more than five years in detention. Gadhafi’s son is one of the most prominent figures expected to run for president — a list that also includes eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar (78), Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah (63) and parliament speaker Aguila Saleh (77).

Photographs distributed on social media showed Gadhafi in traditional brown robe and turban, and with a grey beard and glasses, signing documents at the registration centre in the southern town of Sebha.