Gaddafi flees to Algeria as hunt continues

12 April 2012

Muammar Gaddafi's close family is said to have fled Libya as the hunt for the ousted dictator continues.

Gaddafi's wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Hannibal and Mohammed arrived in neighbouring Algeria yesterday morning, according to state news agency APS.

The new Libyan government, being set up by the National Transitional Council (NTC), may seek to extradite the relatives and bring them to justice.

However, Algeria's autocratic regime has not yet recognised the new Libyan administration and has successfully snuffed out anti-government protests in its own borders.

The whereabouts of Gaddafi himself remain unknown, although some of his other sons are thought to be in Tripoli, and there were reports that one, Khamis, had been killed in an air strike.

While the rebel-led NTC is seeking to establish the new government in Tripoli, pockets of resistance remain from forces loyal to Gaddafi.

Fighting is still particularly intense around the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town. A team of UK officials has begun work in Tripoli towards the reopening of the British embassy in the Libyan capital.

British embassy staff were evacuated from the country in February as violence escalated early in the so-called Arab Spring.

The residence was looted and destroyed in May as part of a series of attacks on Western embassies in Tripoli.

A Foreign Office (FCO) spokesman said the move to re-establish the British embassy reflected "recent military progress" against the Gaddafi regime.

Meanwhile, any prospect of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing being extradited from Libya has been dismissed by Scotland's First Minister.

Alex Salmond spoke after footage showing Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, looking ill and apparently close to death, was aired on US news channel CNN.
The images also prompted the father of one of the bombing victims to call for Megrahi to be left in peace to die. Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, 23, called the idea of extraditing the bomber "monstrous".

In the wake of calls, particularly from America, that the former Libyan intelligence agent should be sent back to prison in the US, Mr Salmond said: "The latest pictures broadcast of Mr al-Megrahi clearly demonstrate that he is an extremely sick man, dying of terminal prostate cancer.

"Hopefully, this will end the ridiculous conspiracy theories that seek to claim anything else."

He said the decision on whether or not to extradite Megrahi lay with the Scottish government and the NTC in Libya.

"Mr al-Megrahi remains under Scottish jurisdiction, and the only people with any legal entitlement to call for his return to Scotland are the Scottish Government," he said.

"We have never had - and do not have - any intention of asking for the extradition of Mr al-Megrahi, because he has conformed to his licence conditions."

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