- JEDDAH: The Libyan opposition is willing to let Muammar Qaddafi and his family flee to Europe as the price of getting him to quit the country and end the violence there.
- Speaking to Arab News, a spokesman in London called for a European government — any government — to offer Qaddafi and his family sanctuary as a way to get rid of him.
Qaddafi has said on several occasions since the uprising started that he would never leave Libya. In a TV broadcast last week, his son Seif Al-Islam said his father would die there. “But his family want to save themselves,” the spokesman said. “They can force him to go if a European country allows him in.”
No European country, apart from unreformed Belarus, would want to be seen offering Qaddafi sanctuary despite major Libyan and Qaddafi family investments in a number of them, notably Italy and the UK. Qaddafi also has close relations with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi but the Italian leader is himself in deep political trouble. To be seen providing any help to Qaddafi could be political suicide. As it is, the European Union is looking at sanctions against Libya, including a freeze of Qaddafi’s assets.
Meanwhile, the UK-based opposition group Libya Watch has called on the International Court of Justice in The Hague to indict Qaddafi and his cohorts for war crimes. The demand covers his sons Seif Al-Islam, Saadi, Hannibal and Khamis, as well as Abdullah Senoussi, Musa Kusa and Ahmed Gadhaf Al-Dam.
Senoussi, Qaddafi’s brother-in-law and the head of Libyan intelligence, has been indicted in France for involvement in the downing of a UTA airliner over Chad in which 180 people died. Kusa is Libyan foreign minister, former head of intelligence and one of Qaddafi’s closest confidants. Al-Dam, Qaddafi’s cousin and another close confidant, fled to Egypt on Sunday.