Gadaffi’s widow demands return of his body

The former dictator was captured and killed by rebels in 2011

The widow of former Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi, has demanded that his body and that of their son, Mutassim, killed and secretly buried during their country’s 2011 uprising, be returned.

Safia Farkash Gaddafi asked the United Nations and the European Union and Libyan authorities to disclose the location where the two were buried.

She also called on the African Union to investigate their deaths of the “martyrs”, and appealed to the international community to assist her family contact another of the Gadaffis’ sons, Saif al Islam.

“I demand that all the members of the UN Security Council, the European Union and everyone who has direct or indirect connection with this murder must tell where the remains of these martyrs are and allow their relatives to bury them in a proper way,” she said.

Her letter came on the second anniversary of the former dictator’s death. He was captured alongside Mutassim as they fled their hometown, Sirte, in October 2011.

Saif al Islam has been held by a group of former rebels in the western town of Zintan since his capture, and is awaiting trial over his alleged role in trying to suppress the 2011 uprising.

Safia and three of the former dictator’s children – Aisha, Hannibal and Mohamed – fled to Algeria in August 2011 as rebel forces seized Tripoli, before part of the family was granted asylum in Oman this year.

Another of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, fled to Niger in September 2011.

Mutassim and another two of Gaddafi’s sons were killed in the 2011 conflict – Saif al-Arab died in a Nato air strike, and Khamis was killed in fighting in August that year.

Read her full letter

“In the memory of NATO’s aggression against my country, which turned Libya into chaos, and in the memory of my husband, whom I consider to be a martyr, my dear son and the people who were with them on October 20, 2011, when NATO air forces shelled the cortege of Libya’s leader, and then, their wounded bodies were butchered by a crowd of people whom I can call no other way than criminals.

What this crowd did to my husband and my son cannot be justified from the point of view of any religion. But I also consider it to be a no lesser crime that the remains of these martyrs are still being hid from their relatives, which is something unprecedented in the entire history.

I demand that all the members of the UN Security Council, the European Union and everyone who has direct or indirect connection with this murder must tell where the remains of these martyrs are and allow their relatives to bury them in a proper way.

I also demand that the African Union, of which Muammar Gaddafi was a founder, should investigate into the murder of him and all the people who were with him on that day.

I demand that the world community should help me to come in touch with my son Saif al-Islam, who has been isolated from all members of our family from the moment of his arrest. Saif’s only “crime” is that he has warned that this revolution can only lead Libya to a chaos – which is something that we are witnessing now.

Saif al-Islam has always been concerned about the situation with human rights in Libya. He has taken many former radical Islamists from American and European prisons and persuaded them to become law-abiding citizens. Many of them have promised him that they would never come back to terrorist activities. But now, some of the people whom Saif has saved from prison are demanding that he should be executed.

Two years after the barbarous murder of my husband, my son and their associates, I am demanding that my voice – the voice of an exiled widow of a country’s leader and a mother – must be heard.”