Senior scholar calls for execution of Gaddafi to be deferred

A senior Muslim scholar has called for the execution of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and other members of the former regime in Libya to be deferred. Dr Ali Al-Sallabi is a member of the Secretariat of the World Federation of Muslim Scholars and a researcher on Islamic thought; he has made his call in the belief that the death sentences should be carried out once the current political turmoil has settled down and national reconciliation has been achieved.

Speaking to Quds Press, Al-Sallabi explained that the death sentences against a number of the former regime’s leaders have been handed down at a time of unfavourable political and security conditions. Executing Gaddafi and the others at this time will not serve transitional justice and national reconciliation, he said, nor will it contribute to the establishment of the necessary institutions for Libya’s stability.

“There is no doubt that achieving justice and providing fairness to the oppressed is a fundamental objective of the revolution,” explained Al-Sallabi, “and it is God’s legislation after all. But achieving all of that requires the existence of appropriate conditions, at the top of which is national consensus – one government, one parliament, one team, and laws that take into account the demand of national reconciliation, amnesty, and transitional justice.”

All of these conditions require the end of the current division between Tripoli and Tobruk, the agreement on a single government that oversees the parliamentary elections, and then, the legislative institution that comes to enact laws of reconciliation and transitional justice, he said. “This could then supervise the trials of those who are charged with committing crimes against the Libyans,” the scholar added.