Saif al-Islam, the most prominent son of Libya’s slain leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has been sentenced to death by firing squad. He was sentenced in absentia on Tuesday in Tripoli along with eight other senior members of the former regime, which was overthrown in 2011.
AljaZeera reports that they were accused of war crimes and suppressing peaceful protests during the revolution, a state prosecutor said in early June. The trial had started in April 2014 before fighting between rival factions resulted in a power struggle with two governments competing for authority – one based in the capital, Tripoli, and the other one in Tobruk in the east.
Saif al-Islam has been held since 2011 by a former rebel group in Zintan that opposes the Tripoli government.
Abdullah Senussi, the former intelligence chief, was among the former regime officials sentenced, as well as former prime minister Baghdadi Ali Mahmudi.
