Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor at the ICC, warned however, the ICC learnt that a group of mercenaries have offered to move Seif to an African country which was a non-party to the ICC’s founding document, the Rome Statute.

“Through intermediaries, we have informal contact with Seif,” the prosecutor said in a statement, issued at the court’s headquarters in The Hague.

“The Office of the Prosecutor has made it clear that if he surrenders to the ICC, he has the right to be heard in court, he is innocent until proven guilty,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo said. “The judges will decide.”

He said after learning that a group of mercenaries offered to move Seif to an African state not bound to hand him over to the ICC, his office was “exploring the possibility to intercept any plane within the airspace of a state party in order to make an arrest.”

Seif, 39, and Colonel Gaddafi’s security chief and brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, 62, are the most wanted fugitives from the slain despot’s ousted circle.

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