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One of Khadafy’s sons is sentenced to death by court

Case was tried in absentia because he’s held by militia

CAIRO — A court in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, sentenced Seif al-Islam Khadafy, a son of former dictator Moammar Khadafy, to death Tuesday in an act of retribution that had been the urgent demand of the millions of Libyans who rose up against the family's rule four years ago.

The sentence, however, was made moot by the civil strife that has since engulfed the country. Khadafy was sentenced in absentia because he is being held captive by a militia in the northwestern city of Zintan, and the group holding him does not recognize the authority of the Tripoli government or its courts.

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Most Libyans are now so preoccupied with the country's internal conflicts that they long ago stopped paying attention to the trial or to the Khadafys.

Libyan news media said eight other senior Khadafy government officials who are believed to be in the custody of the court had also been sentenced to death by firing squad.

Those defendants included Moammar Khadafy's former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, and a former prime minister, Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi. All those sentenced to death were convicted of directing war crimes against Libyans during the uprising against the Khadafy government in 2011.

The death sentences had been expected. The news reports said eight others had been sentenced to life in prison, seven had been sentenced to 12 years, and four had been acquitted. All were charged with crimes for their roles in the Khadafy government. All the sentences are subject to appeal, although it is hard to know for certain who will control Tripoli and its courts by the time appeals are heard.

The most powerful adviser and presumed successor to his father before the uprising, Seif al-Islam Khadafy was widely viewed in the West as a reformer who was gradually opening up Libya's economy and softening its dictatorship. But after the start of the uprising, he angrily rallied Libyans to back his father and fiercely denounced his opponents as criminals and rats.

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After his father's ouster, a militia from Zintan captured Khadafy as he tried to escape the country disguised as a Bedouin in a caravan moving south through the desert. The group took him back to their city, holding him as their own prisoner and refusing to release him to any interim government.

The International Criminal Court sought to extradite Khadafy for trial in The Hague, in part because of concerns he could not receive a fair trial in Libya.

None of the successive transitional governments in Libya have been able to ensure the security of judges, prisoners, courts, or even a legislature against the predations of various armed groups. And the emotions of the uprising made a death sentence appear almost a foregone conclusion.

The Libyan authorities refused to extradite him, however, and the trial began in the spring of 2014. Khadafy initially appeared in the courtroom via a video link from Zintan. But by the late summer of 2014, the proceedings had grown more complicated because Libya had split into a civil conflict between two rival coalitions.