Gaddafi son hints at Libya presidential bid

TRIPOLI: Seif al-Islam, the son of slain dictator Moamer Gaddafi, wants to “restore the lost unity” of Libya after a decade of chaos and does not exclude standing for the presidency.

He spoke in a rare interview, given to the New York Times at an opulent two-storey villa inside a gated compound at Zintan in the west of the North African country.

The 49-year-old said politicians in the decade since have brought “nothing but misery”. “It is time for a return to the past. The country — it’s on its knees... There’s no money, no security. There’s no life here,” Seif al-Islam said in his first appearance in years. Seif al-Islam said in the interview that he was a free man organising a political return, and that his former captors “are now my friends”. Seif al-Islam said “he was confident that these legal issues could be negotiated away if a majority of the Libyan people choose him as their leader”.