FAIR trials rarely emerge from the fog of war. That is why I would prefer a truth and reconciliation commission to Libyan trials of Saif Qadhafi; or for Lord Woolf, whose report on Qadhafi’s relationship with the London School of Economics was released recently, to preside over a trial.

Although Qadhafi has so far avoided the vengeance visited on his father, a trial by Zintan militiamen or Transitional National Council members is hardly likely to be fair. The international criminal court is probably the best bet for justice but also the least likely venue.

For Libya to make the difficult move from revolution to democracy, Qadhafi must be tried. The story of his own role in the run-up to the insurgency — needs to be heard. For that story is a counterpoint to his subsequent betrayal of all he said he believed in.

Since the TNC wishes not only to investigate Qadhafi’s role during the insurgency, but to examine issues of corruption, abuse of state funds, torture and murder under the supposed regime, it should welcome a more encompassing inquiry.

The model is the Woolf commission, which looked at Qadhafi’s relationship with the LSE as a PhD student and donor. The report makes clear that “Saif Qadhafi’s ideas were his own”. The University of London confirmed this with its decision not to revoke his PhD.

Since much of the distrust of Qadhafi’s posture as a reformer and liberal before the revolution has rested on the claim that the degree was fraudulent, this conclusion is of critical importance.

I believe the report also supports the position that Qadhafi was an original thinker, a democratic reformer who was taking risks on behalf of change. In fact, Qadhafi took risks from 2003 when he helped negotiate the surrender of weapons of mass destruction that led to Libya’s opening to the West, then helped free the four Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor being held on bogus charges of infecting children with Aids and played a key role in negotiating the Lockerbie settlement.

Though the media still refer to Saif Qadhafi as his father’s “heir apparent”, Saif forcefully refused that role, insisting he would never take a position that was not subject to elections. In truth, the anomaly is not what Saif Qadhafi did before the revolution, but what he did once it began. But even during the insurgency, he sought to find a peaceful way out. He reached out to South Africa, to the Turks and to others with schemes that would force his father to step down but let him retire in Libya.

Nonetheless, in aligning himself with family and clan, he was destroying the hopes of peaceful reform he had once inspired.

The question remains precisely what Saif Qadhafi did do during the insurgency. Was he merely a cheerleader for the regime, or was he giving orders? His brothers commanded brigades engaged in brutal deeds. What of Saif? My guess is that the evidence here will be more circumstantial than definitive.

Saif Qadhafi may deserve prison for what he did during the insurgency, but for a decade his heart was on the side of reform and democracy. — The Guardian, London

The writer is a senior fellow at the US think tank Demos.