Libya has primary responsibility to arrest Gaddafi

張運興

Xinhua, June 29, 2011

Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo Tuesday stated that Libya has the primary responsibility to implement the arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi.

The prosecutor said in a statement that the ICC is calling Gaddafi's inner circle "to be part of the solution, rather than the problem."

Another way of arresting Gaddafi is to wait until he travels to a member state of the Rome Statute, Ocampo said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Libyan interim National Council has expressed their will to implement the arrest warrant for Gaddafi, which is counted as the second option by the ICC.

The ICC on Monday issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi along with his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, Libya's head of intelligence, for alleged crimes committed in the unrest-torn North African country since February this year.

The ICC's move came as the NATO-led bombing on Libyan government targets entered its 100th day, providing the Libyan opposition forces with "halting" upper hand now in their fight against Gaddafi's forces.

Gaddafi told the court in a statement on Monday not to be impressed about the arrest warrant, stressing that he had never signed the Rome statute, which is the founding treaty of the ICC and therefore doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the court.

Gaddafi called the court an "accessory of the Western world to arrest leaders of the third world."