Libya: rebels demand return of Gaddafi’s family – live updates

• Gaddafi wife and three of his children flee to Algeria • NTC says it seek to extradite Gaddafis from Algeria • Leaked memo: UN plan to send police and observers 8.55am: Rebels say they have “almost certain” information that Gaddafi’s son Khamis, and his intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi , were killed in fighting over the weekend. Similar reports in the past turned out to be unfounded. Reuters treats the claim with caution: If true, their deaths would mark the highest-profile casualties on the Gaddafi side since an uprising began six months ago aimed at ending Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-years in power. “We have almost certain information that Khamis Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi were killed on Saturday by a unit of the national liberation army during clashes in Tarhouna (90 km southeast of Tripoli),” spokesman Ahmed Bani told Al Arabiya television. “Khamis Gaddafi was buried in Bani Walid,” Bani told the pan-Arab channel. However, Khamis has been reported dead twice before during the uprising, only to reappear, and Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who heads the rebel National Transitional Council, told Al Jazeera television on Monday that he did not have any official information about Khamis’s death. Human Rights Watch has evidence that a force commanded by Khamis Gaddaif carried out summary executions of prisoners in a warehouse in Tripoli . 8.38am: Welcome to Middle East Live. Here’s a round up of the latest developments. Libya • Gaddafi’s wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Hannibal and Mohammed and their children have fled to Algeria. They were received on “humanitarian grounds” Algeria’s ambassador to the UN told the BBC World Service. The NTC accused Algeria of an “act of aggression” against the Libyan people. There were reports on Monday night that another of Gaddafi’s sons, Khamis, had been killed in an airstrike south of Tripoli, but this could not be immediately confirmed. • The National Transitional Council said it will seek to extradite Gaddafi’s family from Algeria. “We have promised to provide a just trial to all those criminals and therefore we consider this an act of aggression,” spokesman Mahmoud Shamman told Reuters. “We are warning anybody not to shelter Gaddafi and his sons. We are going after them … to find them and arrest them.” • The rebels claim they are seeking a negotiated surrender of Gaddafi’s two remaining urban strongholds of Sirte, his coastal birthplace, and Sabha in the south. Mahmood Shammam, the NTC’s information minister, dismissed claims that major military offensives against the towns were about to start. “We don’t know that these two cities are revolting against us. We are negotiating to enter these cities peacefully. We will continue to do so,” he said. Over the weekend Gaddafi’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim suggested the fugitive leader was willing to discuss a transitional government . • The UN is prepared to send police, military observers and elections monitors to Libya, according to a leaked memo . The document, unearthed by Inner City Press, provides a broadly upbeat assessment of Libyan’s ability to restore order. • Abdelbasset al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, has been falling in and out of a coma for up to three months, according to his family. Speaking outside Megrahi’s Tripoli home, Abdelnasser Megrahi, described his brother’s condition. He said: “He is very sick. The coma came two or three months ago. Sometimes he speaks to his wife or mother, sometimes he is in a coma. His life is in danger now.” He refused journalists access to the home, after CNN had filmed Megraphi attached to a drip and oxygen mask. He also insisted his brother was not responsible for the bombing. “From day one I believed he was innocent. The case was more political than a crime. There is no actual evidence. The world knows my brother is innocent.” • Libyan rebels may be indiscriminately killing black people because they have confused innocent migrant workers with mercenaries, according to the chairman of the African Union Jean Ping. According to an AP report published by the Washington Post, he said: “NTC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries. If you do that, it means (that the) one-third of the population of Libya, which is black, is also mercenaries. They are killing people, normal workers, mistreating them.” • American journalist and filmmaker Matthew VanDyck has recounted the horror of spending six months in solitary confinement in Gaddafi’s jails, after being freed by rebels last week from the notorious Abu Salim prison. He told the Guardian: I would rather they had just taken me out and beat me, even every day, than go through the solitary confinement, because what it does psychologically is astonishing. I had no idea that the brain could work in the ways that it did in my case. Syria Dozens of soldiers, possibly encouraged by events in Libya, defected to the opposition near the central city of Homs, activists claim, according to the New York Times. The claim coincided with a government assault on Rastan, near Homs. A resident told the paper: “Gunfire and explosion rang across the town early this morning, and we heard that tanks are surrounding the town. We are so scared, too scared to leave the house. We don’t know what they are preparing for us.” Libya Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Abdelbaset al-Megrahi Lockerbie plane bombing Algeria Syria Bashar Al-Assad US foreign policy Nato Eid al-Fitr Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 30, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.