Libya must arrest Gaddafi says prosecutor

The Libyan leader was charged with war crimes by the ICC Libya's regime could "be part of the solution" by executing an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi, wanted for crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor said Tuesday. "Gaddafi's inner circle is the first option. They can complement the arrest warrants," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said at a press conference in The Hague.
"They can be part of the problem and be prosecuted, or they can be part of the solution, working together with the other Libyans to stop the crimes," he said.
The Hague-based court on Monday issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the Libyan intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi for murder and persecution since mid-February, when the bloody uprising started.
Monday's move was hailed by rights bodies and western governments on the 100th day of a NATO bombing campaign, but Tripoli hit back and rejected the warrants, calling the ruling a "cover for NATO which is still trying to assassinate Gaddafi".
On Tuesday, Moreno-Ocampo said: "Libya has the primary responsibility to implement the arrest warrants."
He said that although the north African country was not a State Party to the ICC's founding document, the Rome Statute, it was however a member of the United Nations and therefore had an obligation to co-operate.
As a second option, Moreno-Ocampo also said the rebel Transitional National Council also offered to arrest the Libyan leader.
The prosecutor said he believed it would be "a matter of months" before Gaddafi was arrested if states co-operated with the court.
Thousands of people have been killed in a bloody crackdown on the uprising with began on February 15 and an estimated 650,000 have fled the country, with nearly a quarter of a million people displaced internally, according to the UN.