Libyan court charges 30 Gaddafi aides with murder, embezzlement and other crimes
Tens of thousands of Libyans celebrate the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-islam and the partial fall of Tripoli in the hands of the Libyan rebels on August 21, 2011, in Benghazi, Libya.
A Libyan court has charged about 30 officials who worked for dictator Muammar Gaddafi with various crimes related to their repression of the 2011 popular uprising in Libya.
The charges include murder, kidnapping, complicity in incitement to rape, plunder, sabotage, embezzlement of public funds and acts harmful to national unity.
Among the accused are one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam, and Gaddafi’s intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.
It’s believed that Senussi was also involved in killing more than 1,000 inmates in a massacre at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in 1996.
Both Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Senussi have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
"The trial date will be set by the Tripoli criminal court," prosecutors' office spokesman Seddik al-Sour told a press conference.
While only about a dozen of the accused were in the courtroom to hear the charges, “the presence of all the accused will be obligatory at the trial hearings before the criminal court," Sour said.
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Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.