Former Libyan Intelligence Official Condemns Death Sentence Of Colonel Gadhafi’s Son Saif al-Islam

Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam condemned the court’s decision to impose a death sentence on his cousin Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, late Libyan revolutionary Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s son, for war crimes. The former top-ranked intelligence official said the sentence opened Libya’s door wide to violence.

Gadhafi is among nine people sentenced to death in the 2011 revolution. A former rebel group from the Libyan town of Zintan has kept him in custody and refused to hand him over. He earlier appeared in court via video link but was not present during sentencing.

Al-Dam said he doesn't understand how anyone can be “astonished” by the sentence. He said that the country was carrying executions in the name of law every day.

“The prisons are full with more than 40,000 between men and women who did not nothing except refusing the state of falsehood, which resulted in a forced displacement and exodus of not less than the half of the Libyan people,” al-Arabiya quoted al-Dam as saying. He said the countries that had taken part in overthrowing the Libyan state were responsible for such death sentences.

The BBC reported a Zintani source had confirmed the rebel group would neither execute Gadhafi nor hand him over to the court. Abdullah al-Senussi, former head of intelligence for the Gadhafi regime and the former dictator's brother-in-law, also has been sentenced to death.

Former Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi and Senussi also have been sentenced to death. All of them will have 60 days to appeal.