The lawyer of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, said today that gunmen had prevented him from appealing to exclude his client from the presidential election, a fact that has heightened fears of unrest during the vote.
Disputes over various issues, such as who is eligible to run in the presidential election, threaten to derail the process, which aims to put an end to the decades-long chaos following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Interventions by fighters from either side will further undermine confidence in the vote.
Late Wednesday night, the election commission rejected the candidacy of Saif al-Islam and 24 other people out of a total of 98 who cast ballots to claim the Libyan vote in the election. However, the courts will have the last word on the finalization of the candidacies, as assured by the commission and the UN envoy Jan Koubis.
Lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi said in a video message that gunmen stormed the Shebha city court, where one of the three centers receiving candidates’ files is located. The gunmen prevented him from filing his client’s appeal so that he would not be excluded from the election.
The Ministry of Justice, from Tripoli, confirmed that an armed group forced everyone to leave the court.
Shebha is controlled by a team working with the Libyan National Army of Khalifa Haftar, one of the main candidates in the elections.
Saif al-Islam’s candidacy was rejected because in 2015 he was sentenced in absentia by a Tripoli court for war crimes.
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