Saif Al-Islam Appears before Libya Court
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, the late Libyan leader, has appeared via videolink at a court in Tripoli, the capital.
Saif al-Islam, who faces charges of corruption and committing war crimes, was told on Sunday by the judge presiding over the case to prepare lawyers for his defence.
The defence team demanded access to all the evidence against Saif al-Islam and his fellow defendants.
The case is one of the biggest in Libya's history with more than 200 witnesses and more than 40,000 pages of evidence.
Saif al-Islam is being held in a prison cell in the town of Zintan, 170km southwest of Tripoli.
The former rebel groups holding him have refused to hand him over to the central government in Tripoli, Al Jazeera reported.
The groups think the central government in Tripoli is weak and would not be able to protect Saif al-Islam from Western intelligence agencies, who they say he has incriminating evidence against.
Saif al-Islam was captured in Zintan in November, 2011, as he was fleeing to neighbouring Niger after rebel forces took Tripoli.
His brother, Saadi, was extradited from Niger in March, after he fled Libya following the collapse of the Gaddafi-government.
