In the second part of Correspondents’ interview with al-Saddik al-Sour, head investigator for Libya’s prosecutor general, he spoke about ongoing investigations related to the president of the General National Congress as well as maintaining an element of surprise in the upcoming trials of Mummar Gadaffi’s sons Saif al-Islam and al-Saadi.

Did the office of the Attorney General initiate investigations regarding the video clip leaked to social networking sites about the involvement of the President of the GNC, Nouri Abu Sahmain in moral crimes?

In the second part of Correspondents’ interview with al-Saddik al-Sour, head investigator for Libya’s prosecutor general, he spoke about ongoing investigations related to the president of the General National Congress as well as maintaining an element of surprise in the upcoming trials of Mummar Gadaffi’s sons Saif al-Islam and al-Saadi.

Did the office of the Attorney General initiate investigations regarding the video clip leaked to social networking sites about the involvement of the President of the GNC, Nouri Abu Sahmain in moral crimes?

Yes of course.  There are ongoing serious investigations in this matter.

Has the president of the conference already been summoned by the Attorney General?

So far he hasn’t, however, he says he is willing to appear before the Attorney General. We will determine the appropriate time to interrogate him after we finalize the investigations, collect evidence and become familiar with the incident and all circumstances and conditions surrounding it. When this happens, we will summon all concerned persons, the head of the congress and others.

I can absolutely confirm that investigations are going on—with key players—and will continue next week until we reach the truth.

I cannot give any statements regarding this case, not before the completion of the investigations. Then we will be able to reveal the truth as documented on paper and reached according mechanisms and restrictions set by the Criminal Procedures law.

What about the battalion that raided his house and interrogated him outside the framework of the law? Will Haitham Tagouri, the leader of this battalion, be summoned?

We are against what happened and against detaining and investigating a person who represents the highest state authority, regardless of the justifications. The arrest was illegal and was made by an illegal body. We are investigating this issue. The investigations will be based on the testimonies of the president of the GNC.

What about the cases of the two National Congress members, Akram Janin, who was involved alcohol offenses, and Naji Mukhtar, who was accused of paying bribes to the Barqa region’s executive office? Have you reached any conclusions with these investigations?

Regarding Naji Mukhtar, the case is still open. It is with the Minister of Justice and the GNC because he still enjoys immunity. We asked to lift it and until now we’ve received neither a positive nor a negative response from the GNC.   

The immunity hasn’t been lifted because there is a complexity in interpreting one of the articles in the congress’ internal regulations and because the interior minister insists on not lifting it. He is also responsible for referring this issue to the GNC because the lifting of immunity requests should not be directly submitted by the attorney general.

In all cases, immunity comes with the post and when they are no longer in office we will investigate all those involved. The same thing happened with former Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. When he left his job, an order was issued to summon him and once the prosecutor knew that he was leaving the country, he issued a decision banning him from traveling.

I would like to move to the subject of the trials of the former regime’s officials who were arrested during the liberation war— such as Khalid Kaim, Abdelati Obeidi, Bu Zad Dorda and others. When will the verdicts against them be issued?

Regarding the main officials who are under the control of the Attorney General and who are being directly interrogated by the prosecutor’s office, the first court session was held at the end of March 2014 and the second session was held on April 14.  

Two amendments to articles 241 and 243 of the Criminal Procedure Act were introduced to allow trials to use video links, in order to find a solution to this problem because the congress and the government were not able to safely bring Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to the court’s venue. The amendment of the law will allow witnesses, defendants and experts to communicate with the court via the video links.  In reality, this is a good law and a rightful decision because it complies with the human rights standards and those of fair trials.

After this procedure, we will be able to speed up this chapter of the case.  The justice ministry may have started already, or will soon start the set-up of video links with the Zintan rehabilitation institution. We hope to be able to trial Saif Gaddafi smoothly via this link and thus end the problem of bringing him and the consequent postponement of the trial.

Prolonging the case will harm the interests of the defendant as well as justice and it will have a negative impact on reconciliation and security and stability in the country.

Isn’t it true that showing al-Saadi Gadhafi on Libya’s official channel making confessions while still in prison, does not comply with some of the local and international rules of law?

We, at the investigation department, have stopped showing al-Saadi in the media in the first instance by banning the tape because we did not watch it and we didn’t know what it contained. We also banned it because it violates the provisions of article 59 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which stipulates that the secrets of investigations shouldn’t be disclosed in a way that harms the investigations and the proper process of the criminal case.  

The legislator, according to article 236 of the penal code, penalizes violators by “an imprisonment term of not less than 6 months, in case they disclose the secrets of the investigations.” This is not an arbitrarily punishment. It is stipulated because the disclosure may spoil evidence and help offenders escape punishment.

For all these justifications, and after calling the Attorney General and consulting with him, we banned the broadcast of this tape the first time, but the Attorney General allowed showing it later on, perhaps for a good reason. What I want to stress is that it was al-Saadi’s free will to speak and he had chosen to do so without any pressure or coercion. We do not consider that what he revealed was the truth because we can neither refute nor confirm it.

What we can do is investigate what he says, and verify all evidence, proof and testimonies and we should have an insight into what he said. The sacred principle is that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. We should first verify confessions and support them with evidence, proof and testimonies.

When the investigations are completed, important decisions will be taken by the public prosecutor. The mere showing of the tape is not an appropriate thing to do.  This tape shouldn’t have been published before the completion of the investigations.

Preserving the secrecy of the investigations has played an important role when we investigated the crimes of February 17 with Abdullah al-Senussi and al-Saadi Gaddafi, because they did not know what we have against them. The elements of surprise and confrontation have played a role in their confessions.

If we present all what we have in the media, to satisfy desires and temporary national interests, we are not doing any good for truth and for the investigations.  This would only complicate things and impede the course of justice.