The son of the late Libyan President, Muammar Gaddafi, Saif Al-Islam, yesterday said that a “military force surrounded the Sabha Court for a second day in a row, and prevented judges and staff from accessing the building.”
Saif explained on Facebook that the act had suspended the consideration of an appeal filed by his lawyer against a recent decision by the High National Election Commission to exclude him from running in the upcoming presidential election.
The United Nations earlier announced its dismay about the act.
The HNEC said recently that Saif Al-Islam was not “qualified to run in the country’s next presidential elections,” citing his previous convictions.
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Libya is due to hold its first round of presidential elections on 24 December, after years of UN-led attempts to end the civil war and achieve political stability.
Along with Gaddafi, the HNEC excluded 24 others from a total of 98 candidates. Saif Al-Islam’s exclusion came based on his conviction in absentia in 2015 of committing war crimes during the fighting that toppled his late father, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.
Saif Al-Islam has spent the past ten years in the mountainous town of Zintan, fleeing a possible arrest in the capital, Tripoli.
