The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled that Abdullah al-Senussi — former dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s intelligence chief — can be tried in Libya, the BBC reported Friday.

 

The decision means that the ICC will not insist that Senussi, extradited from Mauritania to Libya last year, be sent to The Hague for trial.

 

The ICC indicted Senussi in 2011 for war crimes allegedly committed during the uprising against Gadhafi that year.

 

The court does not try someone it concludes will get a fair trial in a domestic court. It issued a statement Friday declaring that its decision in the Senussi case would have "no bearing” on whether it would agree that Saif Gadhafi, the late strongman’s son, could be tried in Libya.

 

Saif Gadhafi was also indicted by the ICC for war crimes. He is a co-defendant of Senussi and 36 others in the Libyan domestic prosecution of associates of Moammar Gadhafi, overthrown in 2011 after 42 years in power.

 

According to the BBC, militiamen in western Libya last month refused to deliver Saif Gadhafi to a Tripoli court to appear at a pre-trial hearing alongside Senussi and his co-defendants.

 

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