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Saif al Islam, the son of the late dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, ran for the Libyan presidential election. They are scheduled to take place on December 24, although there is a possibility that they will be postponed. They would be the first elections of this type in this country, since it became independent from Italy in 1951.
This Sunday, November 14, Saif al Islam, son of the late dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, presented his candidacy for the presidential elections in Libya. Local media reported that he registered the documentation in the southern city of Sebha, the southern capital. A predictable fact, since last July, in an interview for the newspaper “The New York Times”, he had expressed his intention to participate in the elections.
The military Khalifa Hafter and the Prime Minister of the National Government of Transitory Unity (GNU), Abdul Hamid al Debeibah, are expected to join the race.
The presidential elections, convened a year ago by the Forum for Political Dialogue in Libya (FDPL), an unelected body created “ad Hoc” by the UN, are scheduled to take place on December 24. However, the disputes between the different rival groups put the celebration in the air, despite the fact that France, the United States, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United Nations insist that the fixed date be respected.
If so, they would be the first presidential elections to be held in this country since it gained independence from Italy in 1951.
In Libya, power groups in Tripoli, the capital, constantly fight for control of the country’s leadership and its abundant energy resources. This has unleashed an internal civil war, which has plunged the nation into a period of chaos.
Who is Saif al Islam?
Saif al Islam is the second son of Muammar al-Gaddafi, a military man and dictator who ruled Libya for 42 years.
On November 19, 2011, a month after his father’s murder, he was captured by militias in Zintan, a western Libyan city, and sentenced to death by a court in Tripoli. They tried him in absentia, as his captors refused to release him.
But in 2017, the Abu Bakr al Siddiq Battalion released him and, in theory, handed him over to the forces under the control of Marshal Khalifa Hafter, a strongman and guardian of Parliament. Hafter, whom Gaddafi considered as a son, facilitated the amnesty of al Islam and protected him from the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), since he is wanted internationally for alleged crimes against humanity. This, despite the fact that it was a betrayal for Hafter that Gaddafi ignored him when he fell into prison in 1987.
Since Saif al Islam won his freedom, his whereabouts have always been unknown. However, it is known that he has spent long periods in southern Libya.
With EFE and Reuters
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