The International Criminal Court had charged Qaddafi, Seif Al-Islam and Libya’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senoussi with crimes against humanity for the bombing and shooting of civilian protesters in February.

A source with Libya’s National Transitional Council said on Thursday Seif Al-Islam wants an aircraft, possibly arranged by a neighboring country, to take him out of Libya’s southern desert so he can turn himself in to the ICC.

If arranged, Seif Al-Islam would be transported to The Hague where the ICC shares a detention unit with the UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where former Liberian president Charles Taylor is on trial.

The court is trying to confirm with the NTC whether Seif Al-Islam wants to surrender and is considering various scenarios for his transfer, ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said.

“It depends on where the suspect is and how we can get into contact with him and what would be necessary to bring him to The Hague. There are different scenarios,” El Abdallah said.

The court is trying to confirm with the NTC whether Seif Al-Islam wants to surrender and is considering various scenarios for his transfer, ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said.

“It depends on where the suspect is and how we can get into contact with him and what would be necessary to bring him to The Hague. There are different scenarios,” El Abdallah said.Later in the day,  a senior NTC official said they have received information that Seif Al-Islam has crossed the Libyan border into Niger.

Seif Al-Islam, fearing for his life if captured in Libya, appears to be trying to hand himself in to the court, but the official said he had not yet found a way to do so.

“There is a contact with Mali and with South Africa and with another neighboring country to organize his exit ... He hasn’t got confirmation yet, he’s still waiting,” said the official, who declined to be named.

With no police force of its own, the ICC has relied in the past on state cooperation to have its suspects arrested and many of them have remained fugitives such as Sudan President Omar Bashir whose government has snubbed the court.

Still, the ICC assisted in transporting several Sudanese rebels to The Hague in recent years to face charges over the killing of 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in 2007.

The Dutch authorities provide assistance to the Hague-based courts in the transfer of suspects to the detention center, such as when former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was flown to Rotterdam on a Serbian government plane.

Transporting Seif Al-Islam to The Hague will pose additional logistical problems, however, given the remote area where he is believed to be hiding. One alternative could involve the UN, which has in the past transported an ICC suspect by helicopter within Sudan to peace talks, but this did not lead to an arrest.

If Seif Al-Islam were to slip into Niger, an ICC member state, the Niger government has an obligation to arrest him, while Tunisia is also a member state. Algeria is not.

Once in The Hague, Seif Al-Islam would be held at the ICC detention center, located near the beach in a leafy residential neighborhood in The Hague. The detention center is built next to an old prison where Dutch resistance fighters were imprisoned by the Nazis and inmates have single-occupant cells about 10 square meters in size, where they can watch TV, read or work on their cases.

Each cell in the ICC wing contains a bed, desk, bookshelves, a cupboard, toilet, hand basin and a telephone, although calls are placed by the center’s staff. Detainees can work on their cases using computers but cannot access e-mail or the Internet.

They can engage in sports activities and other hobbies.

But if he arrives in The Hague, Seif Al-Islam would be also required to appear in court for an ‘initial appearance’, where he would be formally charged and informed of his rights.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accuse Qaddafi, Seif Al-Islam and Al-Senussi of drawing up a “predetermined plan” to kill protesters and said that Qaddafi gave the orders, while Seif Al-Islam organized the recruitment of mercenaries.

Peter Robinson, a legal adviser to former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic who is on trial at the Yugoslavia tribunal, also said Seif Al-Islam should not try to defend himself by arguing he was just obeying orders.

“A person is required under international law not to obey an illegal order. It would not be useful for Seif Al-Islam to defend himself on the grounds that he was just obeying orders from his father,” Robinson said.

He said a more useful defense would be to argue that crimes were committed upon orders from lower-level commanders.

Geert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international criminal law attorney, said Seif Al-Islam could challenge the ICC case on two main fronts, arguing an “abuse of process” or by proving there is no evidence of a “political plan” to kill protesters.

He said Seif Al-Islam could argue that the ICC prosecution was politically influenced and forced by the United Nations to achieve a regime change instead of protection of human rights in Libya. “It can be argued that the ICC prosecution and procedures are abused; in other words: abuse of process,” Knoops said.