The International Criminal Court (ICC) would seek warrants for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son on Monday, an ICC prosecutor told Spain’s Cadena Ser radio.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said he would seek warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al Islam and the country’s intelligence chief, Abdullah al Senussi, for crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi issued an audio address on the national TV on Friday evening, dismissing rumors that he was injured in NATO’s recent raid and saying he was in a place “out of NATO’s reach.”
“You will never be able to kill me, because I live where you cannot reach and cannot kill me – in the hearts of millions of people,” Gaddafi said in his address to “the cowardly crusader.”
“Even if you eliminate me physically, I’ll live in the hearts of millions,” he added.
However, Gaddafi’s audio remarks failed to convince western media that the Libyan strongman was in perfect health.
“The fact that Col. Gaddafi did not deliver his message in vision will fuel speculation that he may be injured,” BBC quoted its correspondent in Tripoli as saying.
The NATO airstrike on a wealthy residential area in Tripoli a week ago killed Gaddafi’s youngest son, Saif al-Arab, 29, who was a postgraduate student majoring in economy. The airstrike on Gaddafi’s house also killed three of his grandchildren as well as several friends and neighbors, Libyan state-run JANA news agency earlier reported.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said earlier on Friday, citing the bishop of Tripoli, that Gaddafi was probably injured in the airstrike. France’s RFI radio earlier quoted the bishop, Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, as saying that he was misunderstood.
“I only said that he was shocked by his son’s death. I’ve never said he was injured or had left Tripoli,” the bishop said.
MOSCOW / CAIRO, May 14 (RIA Novosti)