Saadi Gaddafi willing to surrender: Rebels

Abdelhakim Belhaj, the NTC military commander of Tripoli told al-Jazeera that Saadi had called him and asked if he could surrender.

"Saadi doesn't want to leave Libya, he wants to talk to the NTC and negotiate his surrender," Belhaj said, adding that along with Saadi a number of other top ranking officials of the Gaddafi regime including the former Prime Minister are also ready to surrender.

Claiming that he had got to know the whereabouts of Saadi from his phone call, Belhaj said the Transitional Council will "treat properly" all those who surrender, but they would be tried under international norms.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has already approved warrants for the arrest of Gaddafi and his eldest son and heir apparent Saif-ul Islam on charges of crimes against humanity.

Belhaj and other top rebel commanders have said that they now have definitive information about the whereabouts of the former despot. "We have information that is 80 per cent certain that Gaddafi is still in Libya."

Catching Gaddafi has now become the prime target for the rebels who claim to have overrun most areas of Libya and have held out an ultimatum till Saturday for the surrender of Gaddafi loyalists in Sirte, the hometown of the strongman.