NEWS

 ICC: Gaddafi's death may be war crime 

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has said the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was captured and killed by rebels in October, may have been a war crime."I think the way in which Mr Gaddafi was killed creates suspicions of ... war crimes," he said.

"I think that's a very important issue," he said. "We are raising this concern to the national authorities and they are preparing a plan to have a comprehensive strategy to investigate all these crimes."

Under pressure from Western allies, Libya's National Transitional Council has promised to investigate how Gaddafi and his son Mo'tassim were killed.

The U.N. Security Council referred Gaddafi's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators to the ICC in February and authorized military intervention to protect civilians in March. The ICC indicted Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and the former intelligence chief for war crimes.

Moreno-Ocampo has also said he was investigating allegations that the anti-Gaddafi forces and NATO were also guilty of war crimes during the civil war.

AfricaNews Monitoring Team