Libyan Rebels Demand Algeria Repatriate Gaddafi's Wife, Children

A file photo dated 27 February 2004 shows Safiya Farkash, the wife of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, at the opening of the African Union summit in Sirte, Libya. EPA/BGNES

Libya's rebel government has interpreted Algeria's sheltering of the wife and three of the children of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi as an "act of aggression."

After the Algerian Foreign Ministry revealed Monday night that the wife of Muammar Gadhafi, Safiya, his daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Mohammad, accompanied by their children, entered Algeria Monday morning, representatives of Libyan rebels' Transitional National Council have been quick to react by making it clear they would demand the repatriation of the Gaddafi family members in order to bring them to justice.

"We have promised to provide a just trial to all those criminals and therefore we consider this an act of aggression," spokesman for the NTC Mahmoud Shamman said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

"We are warning anybody not to shelter Gaddafi and his sons. We are going after them in any place to find them and arrest them," he added.

The National Transitional Council Justice Minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, in turn has stated that the rebel government of Libya was going to demand the extradition of Gaddafi's wife and children to their home country.

The Algerian Foreign Ministry said the members of the Gaddafi family entered Algeria at 8.45am on Monday.

The statement did not provide immediately additional details or say whether Gadhafi himself was with the family.

The movement of his family raises speculation that the ousted dictator could also have entered into the country.

Algeria, which has been sticking to a policy of neutrality regarding the civil war in Libya, has been viewed with misgivings by the Libyan rebels' Transitional National Council.

The announcement about the fleeing of Gaddafi's family into Algeria comes several hours after earlier on Monday Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci held talks with a top Libyan rebel official, the highest-level contact between Algeria and the rebel government of Libya.

Medelci met Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the NTC's rebel executive committee, on the sidelines of an Arab League meeting in Cairo, Algeria's state APS agency said on Monday.

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