Saadi Gaddafi, one of the sons of fugitive Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, has arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey. Saadi is in the "safe custody" of Niger security forces in Niamey, sources were quoted as saying by the BBC.
On Monday, Niger's Prime Minister Brigi Rafini announced that a total of 32 members of Gaddafi's "inner circle", including Saadi, had fled to Niger.
"These people have been received on humanitarian grounds. We didn't ask them to come here, and if they are here it is for humanitarian reasons. It is my opinion that you can't chase away someone that is fleeing a war," Niger's Justice Minister Marou Amadou stated. The US State Department said on Tuesday Saadi is being held under house arrest at a government residence.
Meanwhile, NATO said its members do not know whether Muammar Gaddafi is still in Libya. According to Colonel Roland Lavoie, the NATO mission's spokesman, the alliance had received, at "various points", intelligence confirming that Gaddafi was still in Libya, but that today his whereabouts remained a mystery. "To be frank we don't know if he has left the country," Lavoie conveyed.
