A Libyan court on Tuesday sentenced former autocrat Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam and eight other defendants to death for crimes during the 2011 uprising.
Former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi and Gaddafi’s last prime minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi were also among those sentenced to death, Middle East Eye reported.
Saif al-Islam was not in court because he is held in the southwest hill town of Zintan by militiamen opposed to the Tripoli authorities.
In a trial that opened in the Libyan capital in April last year, 37 defendants were charged on Tuesday with crimes, including murder and complicity in incitement to rape, during the 2011 uprising that toppled the dictatorship.
The militia holding Saif al-Islam is loyal to the House of Representatives government which fled to the remote east last August when a rival militia alliance seized the capital and set up its own administration.
Saif al-Islam’s sole appearances before the court have been by video link and there have been none since May last year.
Most of the other defendants are held in the capital, but some are held in Libya’s third city Misrata which is loyal to the Tripoli authorities.
Saif al-Islam is wanted by The Hague-based court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
ICC prosecutors say that as part of his father’s “inner circle,” he “conceived and orchestrated a plan to deter and quell, by all means, the civilian demonstrations against Gaddafi’s regime.”
