TRIPOLI: Seif al-Islam, the second son and heir apparent of the late deposed Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi, is said to have been freed in Libya after more than five years in captivity.

The Abu Bakr al-Sadiq Brigade, a militia that controls the town of Zintan in western Libya, said Seif al-Islam was freed late on Friday, under an amnesty law promulgated by the parliament based in the country’s east during Ramazan.

“He is now free and has left the city of Zintan,” the group said in a statement on its Facebook page.

There was no independent confirmation of Seif al-Islam’s release, which could spark further instability in a country already wracked by divisions and violence.

The late Libyan dictator’s son had been held in Zintan since November 2011, just days after his father was killed in a Nato-backed uprising against his decades-long rule.

The Zintan militia, which opposes Libya’s UN-backed government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital, had refused to hand him over to authorities despite several legal cases.

Among them was an arrest warrant for Seif al-Islam issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity related to the bloody repression of the uprising.

In response to an email, Seif al-Islam’s lawyer at the ICC, Karim Khan, said: “I am not able to confirm or deny any matters at this moment in time.” Previous reports of Seif al-Islam’s release have proven false.

It was unclear why the Zintan group might have decided to release Seif al-Islam now or what he might be planning.

His mother and some of his siblings fled to Algeria after the revolution and eventually settled in Oman.

His release comes with the North African country still rocked by infighting, with authorities in the east, reportedly allied with the forces of powerful strongman Khalifa Haftar, refusing to recognise the Tripoli-based GNA.

Some in the country have even started yearning for the Qadhafi years, when the oil-rich country was ruled by a deeply repressive regime but was also stable.

Seif al-Islam, 44, is the second of Qadhafi’s eight children, the eldest son of his second wife Safiya.

The fluent English speaker, whose name means “sword of Islam”, often appeared in the West as the public face of his father’s regime and was seen by many as a potential reformer.

His reformist image vanished quickly however in the uprising against his father’s 42-year dictatorship.

Seif al-Islam became the defiant face of the embattled regime, appearing on television or giving news conferences to warn that opposition forces would be crushed.

Seif al-Islam and eight other Qadhafi-era figures, including spymaster Abdullah al-Senussi, were sentenced to death by a Tripoli court in July 2015.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2017