A militia-run prison failed to transfer the son of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi to a court hearing in Tripoli on Thursday, underscoring the central government's difficulty in asserting its authority nearly two years after the end of the country's civil war.
Court officials said they were seeking clarification as to why Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the most prominent figure from his father's defunct regime, failed to show at an arraignment hearing addressing alleged crimes committed during the 2011 war.
Al-Seddik al-Sur of the state prosecutor's office told reporters Thursday that authorities have asked for "justification" as to why Seif al-Islam was not transferred from the western town of Zintan, where a militia has held him since the end of the war and where he appeared in a brief hearing on separate charges Thursday.
State TV showed the slim, bearded defendant wearing a blue prison suit inside a cage at the courtroom in the mountain town, where the judge adjourned the trial until Dec. 12 over "lack of evidence."
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