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29 March 2024

Revealed: how Gaddafi's son was caught

Published
By YouTube/Rueters

Saif Al Islam Gaddafi was betrayed to his captors by a Libyan nomad who says he was hired to help Muammar Gaddafi's son escape to neighbouring Niger on the promise that he would be paid €1 million (Dh4.95 million).

Saif, wanted for prosecution by the International Criminal Court, was captured at the weekend in what one official in the country's new government said was "the final chapter in Libya's drama".

Ambush spot

With a black scarf wrapped around his head, Yousuf Saleh Al Hotmani said that he contacted revolutionary fighters in Libya's south to inform them when Saif's two-car convoy would be passing the area on the night of November 18.

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"I made Saif believe that I trusted him," he said yesterday in Zintan, where Saif is being held at a secret location before the details of his prosecution are finalised.

On the night of Saif's capture, Al Hotmani said he was travelling with the younger Gaddafi's personal guard in the first car of their convoy.

"I had agreed with the fighters [who captured Saif Al Islam] that the best place for the ambush would be in a part of desert that was surrounded by high ground," he said.

Ten fighters from Zintan, in the Western mountains, and five from Al Hotmani's own tribe, Hotman, were waiting. Saif, dressed in a long robe and a brown head scarf, tried to run, but was captured.