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Gadhafi son in touch with ICC

Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters arrive in Benghazi from Sirte on October 22, 2011. The eastern Libyan city of Benghazi rocked with gunfire and chants of "Alla Akbar" (God is Great) as trucks full of fighters who defeated Moammar Gadhafi's forces in his hometown of Sirte returned home. UPI/Salah Tobal
1 of 3 | Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters arrive in Benghazi from Sirte on October 22, 2011. The eastern Libyan city of Benghazi rocked with gunfire and chants of "Alla Akbar" (God is Great) as trucks full of fighters who defeated Moammar Gadhafi's forces in his hometown of Sirte returned home. UPI/Salah Tobal | License Photo

BENGHAZI, Libya, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, one of Moammar Gadhafi's surviving sons, has been in touch with the International Criminal Court, the chief prosecutor said Friday.

Saif is believed to be in Niger. Luis Moreno-Ocampo told CNN no one at the court knows his exact location and would not say who was involved in "informal conversations" about his possible surrender.

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If he is tried for crimes against humanity, Saif's rights as a defendant will be protected, Moreno-Ocampo said.

"We believe we have a strong case," the prosecutor said. "We believe he should be convicted."

Moammar Gadhafi was captured in Sirte last week and killed under circumstances that are still murky. Libya has retreated from a claim he was killed by cross fire and says it will prosecute those suspected of killing him after his capture.

Videos -- including images of a wounded Gadhafi apparently being sodomized with a stick or a knife or some other spike-shaped weapon -- caused widespread revulsion outside the country and strong denunciations by the transitional government's international backers.

National Transitional Council Vice Chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, a human-rights lawyer, said Libya would try to bring to justice anyone proven to have fired the shots that killed Gadhafi.

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"Whoever is responsible for [Gaddafi's killing] will be judged and given a fair trial," he told the Saudi-owned Arabic-language al-Arabiya satellite news channel Thursday, explaining Libya's new government has "a code of ethics" for handling prisoners of war.

A rebel fighter who identified himself as Senad el-Sadik el-Ureybi said in a leaked video a couple of days after Gadhafi's capture he shot and killed the former ruler.

"We grabbed him. I hit him in the face," the fighter said in Arabic. "Some fighters wanted to take him away and that's when I shot him twice, in the head and in the chest."

His account was not independently confirmed.

Whoever killed Gadhafi is widely known in Misurata, Libya, as is the Katiba Ghoran unit he belonged to, Britain's Guardian reported Friday.

Misuratan forces played important roles in the fall of Tripoli Aug. 21, and in and the south coastal city of Sirte Oct. 20 where Gadhafi was captured, bloodied but alive, in a wastewater drain.

The ousted dictator died of bullet wounds to his head and chest on the way to a hospital, a post-mortem indicated.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to lift the no-fly zone over Libya and cancel its authorization for military action by NATO as of Monday despite an NTC request for NATO to stay until the end of the year to stop Gadhafi loyalists from fleeing to neighboring countries.

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After the vote, NATO, which led the air campaign against the loyalists, confirmed it would cease operations by 11:59 p.m. Libyan time Monday, when it would hand control of Libyan air space back to local authorities.

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