Libya’s National Electoral Commission rejected on Wednesday the presidential candidacy of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former ruler Muammar Gaddafi, saying he was found ineligible to run in December’s planned polls.
Gaddafi was one of several candidates that the Commission disqualified in an initial decision pending an appeals process that will ultimately be decided by the judiciary.
The military prosecutor in Tripoli had urged the commission to rule out Gaddafi after his conviction in absentia on war crimes charges in 2015 for his part in fighting the revolution that toppled his father in 2011.
“Saif al-Islam did not provide anything that could invalidate this judgment,” the commission said.
Internationally, the International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague in the Netherlands, is demanding that Saif al-Islam be extradited to stand trial for “crimes against humanity”.
For nearly 10 years, Saif al-Islam did not appear in public until 2013 in a television interview from his prison in Zintan, and then went into hiding until his appearance on 14 November, presenting his candidacy papers at the Elector Commission office in the southern city of Sabha.
