Gadhafi's Heirs: Dead Dictator's Sons Speak Out
By JEFFREY KOFMAN and KEVIN DOLAK | ABC News – 4 hrs ago
Just one of Moammar Gadhafi's eight children is still unaccounted for following the Libyan dictator's death last week, and although he is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court, Libya's former heir apparent is still trying to reclaim his father's glory.
Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi, the London-educated son who was to succeed his father and carry on the dynasty is possibly still at large. Libya's interim government had said he was captured this weekend, but at the very same time the 39-year-old appeared on Syrian television.
"We continue our resistance. I'm in Libya, alive, free and intend to go to the very end and exact revenge," Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi was heard saying on Syrian TV. "I say go to hell, you rats and NATO behind you. This is our country, we live in it, and we die in it and we are continuing the struggle."
The short message was broadcast on Syrian TV station Al-Rai on Sunday and was soon uploaded by several users onto YouTube. It's not clear if the audio-only message was broadcast live or was a recording. The Al-Rai station broadcasts into Libya, and in the past has broadcast messages from Moammar Gadhafi.
As the hunt for Saif intensifies, his brother Saadi Gadhafi, who escaped the country in September as rebel forces began to close in, has publicly lashed out about the death of his father and brother.
Under house arrest in Nigeria, Saadi issued a blistering condemnation of the way his father was treated after capture.
"These barbaric executions and the grotesque abuse of the corpses make it clear that no person affiliated with the former regime will receive a fair trial in Libya," he said through his publicist.
As news and video footage of his death surfaced, the United Nations' High Commission for Human Rights called for an investigation into the events surrounding his death; though video seems to show him in rebel custody, he allegedly died in "crossfire."
Libya's acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said that he would not oppose a full investigation under international supervision into his death, according to The Associated Press.
The fate of one of Gadhafi's other sons, Moutassim Gadhafi, is quite clear however: his body now lies with his father's on display in a meat refrigerator for all of Libya to see.
"This is his destiny because of all the evil he has done," one Libyan spectator said after lining up to see for himself the body of the man who ruled Libya for 42 years and his fifth son.
All of the dictator's eight children lived their lives as lavishly and as ruthlessly as their father.
Three of the Gadhafi children -- Moutassim, Khamis and Said al-Arab -- have been killed in the revolution. Three more, Hannibal, Mohammed and Gadhafi's only daughter Aisha – once called the Claudia Schiffer of North Africa -- are now living in exile in Algeria with Gadhafi's wife Safia.
Across Libya there is little sympathy for anyone in the Gadhafi family. The interim government officially declared the country liberated this weekend, and has promised to bring democracy.
While celebratory gunshots rang out across the capital of Tripoli, it has been one non-stop party as Libya begins its transition to democracy. A new interim government is expected to be declared within a month, with elections for a constitutional assembly expected within eight months.
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