Col Gaddafi's wife and three children 'flee to Algeria'
The wife and three of the children of Col Muammar Gaddafi have sought refuge in Algeria, the authorities there confirmed on Monday night, as the hunt for the Libyan dictator continued.
Two of Gaddafi's children with their mother found in the families photograph album Photo: New York Times/Eyevine
By Richard Spencer, Tripoli and Rob Crilly in Benghazi
9:40PM BST 29 Aug 2011
Safiya Gaddafi, the dictator’s second wife and mother of all but one of his children, fled across the desert border between the two countries on Monday morning, a statement from Algiers said.
With her was Col Gaddafi’s eldest son, Mohammed, along with another son, Hannibal, Col Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha, and their children. Mohammed Gaddafi, the least involved in politics of all Col Gaddafi’s children, was captured as the rebels took Tripoli nine days ago but later escaped. A senior rebel officer said Khamis, another of the dictator’s sons, had been killed in battle near Tripoli.
Colonel Al-Mahdi al-Haragi, head of the Tripoli Brigade of the rebel army, said he had confirmation that Khamis was badly wounded in the clash near the town of Bani Walid, south-east of Tripoli. He was taken to a hospital but died of his wounds and was buried in the area, the colonel said. No independent confirmation of the death was available and rebels have reported his death twice before.
The news that members of Col Gaddafi’s family were being sheltered by Algeria prompted an angry response from the Libyan National Transitional Council. They described it as an “act of aggression” and demanded their extradition. Speculation continues over the whereabouts of Col Gaddafi. A report from an Italian news agency said Libyan diplomats in Rome believed he was in Bani Walid with two of his sons, Saadi and Saif al-Islam.
A senior rebel leader, Brig Gen Abdusalam al-Hasi, the head of the country’s special forces before he joined the uprising in February, said he believed the vanquished leader was with Touareg allies in the south-west of the country, close to the border with Algeria. “The Touareg are supporting Gaddafi so I think he’s there,” he said. Col Gaddafi met Safiya Farkash, a nurse, while he was in hospital being treated for appendicitis in 1969. She bore him seven children.
Aisha is one of his more westernised offspring. Hannibal acquired a reputation for violence while travelling and living in Europe. His arrest for mistreating two members of his staff while at a hotel in Geneva caused a diplomatic rift with Switzerland, in which two Swiss businessmen were jailed in Libya in retaliation.
On Monday, television footage showed the nanny of Hannibal’s children hiding in their home in Tripoli, horribly burned and scarred, apparently as a result of an attack some months ago by Hannibal’s wife, Aline Skaf. The nanny said that she had refused to beat one of their children, who would not stop crying.
The flight of the Gaddafi family will cause a major diplomatic headache. Algeria refused to take sides in the Libyan civil war, and has still not recognised the NTC. Unlike Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam, none of the four family members in Algeria have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. Mahmoud Shammam, chief spokesman for the NTC, said: “We have promised to provide a just trial to all those criminals and therefore we consider this an act of aggression.
“We are warning anybody not to shelter Gaddafi and his sons. We are going after them in any place to find them and arrest them.” Libya’s new justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi wants Col Gaddafi to face a public trial and, if convicted, be executed in private by firing squad. A public trial “would be a kind of therapy for the Libyan people,” an aide to the minister said in an interview on Monday.
The Foreign Office said it was aware of reports of the Gaddafi family fleeing and that it was a matter for the NTC. In another development, the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted over the Lockerbie bombing, appealed to Scottish authorities to send doctors to Libya to help care for him, despite the continued furore over his release from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. His brother said the family no longer trusted “local doctors”.
