TRIPOLI: Wanted Libyan war crimes suspect Seif al-Islam Qadhafi, son of slain dictator Moamer Qadhafi and once seen as his heir apparent, registered to run on Sunday for next month’s presidential election.

Libya’s first ever direct presidential poll, with a first round on December 24, would mark the climax of a process launched last year by the United Nations to try to draw a line under years of violence since the revolt that toppled Qadhafi in 2011.

Wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the Nato-backed uprising, Seif al-Islam completed “all the required legal conditions”, the election commission said.

“Seif al-Islam Qadhafi submitted... his candidacy for the presidential election to the High National Electoral Commission office in the city of Sebha,” it said in a statement.

The 49-year-old, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard, recited a verse from the Holy Quran and thanked those assisting him, saying: “God bless you”, video footage showed.

The commission released pictures showing Seif al-Islam dressed in a traditional bedouin robe and headdress. He was issued with a voter registration card for the southern Sebha district.

Libya opened registration for candidates in presidential and parliamentary polls last week.

Both are slated for December 24, but in early October parliament split the dates of the vote by postponing legislative elections until January.

Foreign powers have been pushing hard for both elections to be still held on the same date, as agreed at UN-led talks last year.

Speculation had been mounting for months over a possible presidential bid by Seif al-Islam, who was also sentenced to death by a Tripoli court in 2017 for crimes committed during the revolt. In July, Seif al-Islam emerged from years in the shadows and told The New York Times he was planning a political comeback.

In a rare interview, he said he wanted to “restore the lost unity” of Libya after a decade of chaos.

“I’ve been away from the Libyan people for 10 years. You need to come back slowly, slowly. Like a striptease. You need to play with their minds a little,” the paper quoted him as saying.

Until the interview, Seif al-Islam had not been seen or heard from since June 2014, when he appeared via video link from Zintan, in the west of the country, during his trial by the Tripoli court. Although the court sentenced him to death in absentia, a rival administration in the east pardoned him in a decision never confirmed by authorities in Tripoli.

The militia that was holding him in Zintan has repeatedly refused to hand him over to The Hauge-based ICC, and freed him in 2017.

A spokesman for the ICC, Fadi Abdallah, told Libya’s Al-Ahrar television that the court still wants Seif al-Islam.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2021