TRIPOLI/BEIJING (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court said Saturday that Libya’s Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was in contact via intermediaries about surrendering for trial, but it also had information mercenaries were trying to spirit him to a friendly African nation.

U.S. military and government representatives held security talks in neighboring Niger with local officials in Agadez, which has been a way station for other Libyan fugitives, including another son of Muammar Gaddafi, Saadi. A Reuters reporter saw a U.S. military plane at Agadez airport.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court said on Saturday Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was in contact through intermediaries about surrendering for trial, but it also had information mercenaries were trying to spirit him to a friendly African nation.

The ICC has warned the 39-year-old, apparently anxious not to be captured by Libyan interim government forces in whose hands his father Muammar Gaddafi was killed last week, that it could order a mid-air interception if he tried to flee by plane from his Sahara desert hideout for a safe haven.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi wants to turn himself in to The Hague war crimes court, a senior Libyan official told Reuters on Wednesday.

On the run in the desert, fearing for his life after his father was captured and slain and despairing of any safe haven across an African border, the 39-year-old once expected to inherit dynastic power from Muammar Gaddafi now saw a Dutch prison cell as his best option, the official said.

TRIPOLI, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who once
vowed to die fighting on Libyan soil, now wants to face
international justice instead and avoid any chance of meeting
the same grisly end as his father, Libyan officials said.

An official of the ruling National Transitional Council
(NTC) said on Wednesday that Saif al-Islam, the only one of
Muammar Gaddafi’s eight children still on the run, had proposed
surrendering to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which
has indicted him for war crimes.

TRIPOLI, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Libya’s interim leader urged
NATO on Wednesday to maintain its involvement in the country
until the end of the year, though the Western military alliance
that helped topple Muammar Gaddafi is keen to wind up its formal
mission within days.

With Gaddafi’s son and heir-apparent believed still at large
and seeking to flee following his father’s killing last week,
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional
Council (NTC), said he wanted NATO help in stopping Gaddafi
loyalists escaping justice.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – NATO is to formally decide on Wednesday whether to end its mission over Libya now that Muammar Gaddafi is dead and buried and the country’s new leaders have declared the nation “liberated”.

The likely decision to end the alliance’s patrols over the skies of Libya at the end of the month marks another milestone in what the National Transitional Council (NTC) has pledged will be a road toward democracy and free and fair elections in 2013.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi, with his pocked face and curly hair, may have been one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century, but the capital he lorded over is doing its best to forget him.

“Let the dust of the desert sweep over the hole where he was buried,” Mohammed al Sharif said in English, to nods of approval from friends, on the day the dead dictator’s decomposing body was consigned to precisely that — a secret desert grave.

TRIPOLI, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi and his son
Mo’tassim were buried in a secret desert location on Tuesday,
five days after the desposed Libyan leader was captured, killed
and put on grisly public display.

The saga has made Western allies of Libya’s interim
leadership queasy about the prospects for the rule of law and
stable government in the post-Gaddafi era.

TRIPOLI, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Two loyalists of Libya’s interim
government were handed Muammar Gaddafi’s body to bury secretly
deep in the Sahara desert on Tuesday after a cleric prayed over
his decomposing corpse, a Libyan official said.

With their Western allies uneasy that Gaddafi was roughed up
and shot after his capture on Thursday, NTC forces had put his
body on show in a cold store while they argued over what to do
with it until its decay forced them to shut the doors on Monday.

TRIPOLI, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Ousted Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi and his son Mo’tassim were buried on Tuesday in a secret
desert location, a National Transitional Council (NTC) official
said, ending a wrangle over their rotting corpses that led to
fears for Libya’s stability.

With their Western allies uneasy that Gaddafi was roughed up
and shot after his capture on Thursday, NTC forces had put the
body on show in a cold store while they argued over what to do
with it, until its decay forced them to close the doors on
Monday.