Will Seif Gaddafi Survive to Have His Day in Court?

During the late evening of 10/20/11 the White House, the Office of the Secretary of State, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Libyan Embassy in Washington, DC received a  faxed communication from an American organized  international legal team currently preparing their departure to Libya.

The group, whose assistance has been arranged through Gadhafi family members and friends, has accepted the obligation to represent Seif al Islam against charges filed by the International Criminal Court on June 26, 2011 and to represent him in any legal proceedings that the NTC government may bring against him in Libya.

This observer is a member of the group of international lawyers who seek justice for their client, Saif al Islam.

An excerpt of the communication to Washington reads:

“We demand that our client, Seif al Islam al Gadhafi be immediately protected and kept under continual watch and care by the International Committee of the Red Cross until we are granted personal contact with him and have the opportunity to complete current efforts at arranging interim measures of protection to guarantee his safety.

“We insist that our client not be questioned or interrogated by anyone including representatives of the current government of Libyan or by investigators from the ICC until he has had the opportunity for legal consultation and until he recovers from his wounds.

“The rights of Seif al Islam must be protected in full compliance with international norms and we call on the United Nations Security Council and International Human Rights Organizations to act immediately to protect our client.

“Information arriving from family members and friends of our client Seif al Islam leaves no doubt that NATO has ordered his killing to spare them the international accountably that awaits NATO as the World learns from eyewitness accounts and reliable, competent and probative physical and demonstrative evidence compiled over the past six months exactly what NATO has wrought on Libya and its civilian population.

“Shortly we will file with the ICC formal demands for our clients protection and his transfer to a sanctuary outside of Libya lest he be assassinated as was the fate today of his father, Colonel Moammar al Gadhafi.

“We intend to hold the current governments of Libya and the United States as well as NATO fully responsible for the brutal assassination of our client’s father and brother Mutassim and for any abuse or harm that is directed at our client, Seif al Islam.

“We intend to prove in Court that since the passage of UN Security Resolution by the United Nations Security Council on March 17, 2011, NATO has repeatedly targeted civilian targets with more than 9,000 bombing sorties in Libya as part of its campaign to assassinate the Libyan leader Colonel Gadhafi and his close aides and advisers.

“We intend to prove in Court that NATO did repeatedly sanction others to carry out his assassination and that his killers on October 20, 2011 knew that a large cash award awaited them if they killed Colonel Gadhafi and silenced him from testifying against NATO officials and current Western leaders who led the eight month destruction of Libya.”

The next few days will be a major test for the application of international law as applied to Libya and may well signal whether Libya descends more deeply into civil war.

Franklin Lamb is a member of the American led legal team that intends to defend Seif al Islam against current charges filed against him at the International Criminal Court. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Lebanon, France, and USA based Meals for Syrian Refugee Children Lebanon (MSRCL) which seeks to provide hot nutritional meals to Syrian and other refugee children in Lebanon. http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com.