Africa: Concern over mercenaries

Less than a year after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s fatal ouster, preparations are underway for the trial of his son, Saif al-Islam, even as new facts emerge about the involvement of foreign mercenaries in the Libyan crisis and in other African wars. It has emerged that a number of unidentified white South African mercenaries were hired to smuggle the beleaguered Gaddafi and his sons to exile in Niger. Their attempts were, however, thwarted by Nato bombs shortly before rebels shot the strongman dead.