SHISHAN: The fate of one of Muammar Qadhafi's last bastions hung on negotiations Sunday, as Libya's new leaders called for the ousted strongman to stand trial in his homeland when captured.

“We are negotiating through the intermediary of tribal leaders who hope to convince the armed groups (loyal to Qadhafi) to surrender,” Abdullah Kenshil, the chief of the National Transitional Council's negotiating team, said.

“We will protect them, we won't do anything to them, we only want to try them, and they will have a fair trial.” A military commander had earlier said talks aimed at securing the peaceful surrender of Qadhafi's forces in Bani Walid had been abandoned and an assault on the oasis town southeast of Tripoli was imminent.

But Kenshil said he was awaiting a response from the pro-Qadhafi forces, who he said numbered between 30 and 50 men, “very well-armed, with machine-guns, rocket-launchers and snipers.”

He said the talks had been going on for several days. “At the beginning they said no, but now we are assuring them that we will protect them against any act of reprisal.”

A local spokesman for the NTC now holding most of Libya said the front line was 15 to 20 kilometres (10 to 12 miles) north of Bani Walid and that troops were just awaiting orders to advance.

“Last night the Qadhafi forces tried to move out. Our fighters responded and there were some clashes lasting a few minutes,” Mahmud Abdelaziz said.

The new government's interim interior minister Ahmed Darrat told AFP he was confident the town's capture was imminent. “We expect Bani Walid to be freed today or tomorrow,” he said.

The deputy chief of the military council in Tarhuna, north of Bani Walid, Abdulrazzak Naduri, said, “Everything depends on the negotiations.

“If they refuse (to surrender), we will advance, if the negotiations go well, we will enter and hoist the flag without a fight. It's the last chance, we can't extend our ultimatum again.”

On Saturday, Naduri said Qadhafi's son Saadi was still in Bani Walid, along with other senior figures of the fallen regime, while prominent son Seif al-Islam had fled the town.

Civilians coming from Bani Walid said that most of Qadhafi's forces had now fled, taking their heavy weaponry with them into the surrounding mountains.

Nato said its warplanes had hit an ammunition store near Bani Walid on Saturday, as well as military targets in Qadhafi's coastal hometown of Sirte, Buwayrat west of Sirte and Hun in the Al-Jufra oasis.

NTC forces east of Sirte meanwhile moved to disarm members of the Hussnia tribe suspected of loyalty to the ousted strongman on Sunday.

The NTC spokesman in London, Guma al-Gamaty, said that when captured Qadhafi should stand trial in Libya and not at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague that has issued an arrest warrant for suspected crimes against humanity committed during the Libyan uprising.

“The ICC will only put Qadhafi on trial for crimes committed over the last six months,” Gamaty told BBC television.

“Qadhafi is responsible for a horrific catalogue of crimes committed over the last 42 years, which he should stand trial for and answer for and he can only answer for those in a proper trial in Libya itself.”

Gamaty said it would be up to the court to determine whether a death sentence was appropriate for Qadhafi, but added: “The court will be fair and just and will meet all international standards.

“It will be a fair trial -- something that Qadhafi has never offered any Libyans who criticised him over the last 42 years.”

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned against too thorough a purge of Qadhafi appointees in the Libyan apparatus, pointing to the chaos that had ensued in Iraq when even low-ranking officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath party were stripped of their jobs after the 2003 US-led invasion.

In fresh revelations from documents obtained by media and rights groups in Tripoli, Britain's Sunday Times said London invited two of Qadhafi's sons to the headquarters of the SAS special forces unit in 2006 as then premier Tony Blair tried to build ties with the Libyan regime.

The Mail on Sunday said Qadhafi's regime warned of “dire consequences” for relations between Libya and Britain if the cancer-stricken convicted Lockerbie bomber died in a Scottish jail.

Senior British officials feared Qadhafi “might seek to extract vengeance” if he was not released, it said.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only man convicted of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people when it exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

He was said to be only three months from death when he was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government on August 20, 2009, but he was found to be still alive, though very feeble in Tripoli, last week.

Interim defence minister Jallal Dghaili arrived in Tripoli from Benghazi on Sunday with a large following as the NTC gradually transfers from its eastern base to the capital.