Operation Oil Theft: Month 8, Week 3, Day 1.

On Monday night (31/10/11 - 1/11/11) Libya took it's first step to forming a new government when the Transitional National Council (TNC) elected Abdurrahim al-Keib as the country's new Prime Minister. In a nation where knowledge of the oil industry is essential the US educated Professor of electrical engineering at the University of Alabama is also faculty chair at the oil company sponsored Adu Dhabi Petroleum Institute. In order to become elected al-Keib beat off challenges from Abdel Hafez Ghoka - the TNC's vice chair, Ali Zidan - the TNC's representative to Europe and Ali Tarhouni - the TNC's oil minister. al-Keib is now charged with implementing the constitutional declaration and will begin by nominating ministers to run Libya's affairs in the interim.

Meanwhile Saif al-Islam Qaddafi has still not surrendered himself to the International Criminal Court (ICC). However on Wednesday (2/11/11) the ICC did confirm that they are in negotiations with him. This is the ICC's way of warning any interested party that they are aware of his current location and would therefore notice if he were to suddenly disappear from that location. They did though suggest that he may want to move to a new, safer location. As with previous announcements on the matter the ICC were keen to stress that Saif al-Islam is innocent until proven guilty which seems to be an indication that they believe the case against him to be quite weak. Plus since the original arrest warrant was issued the credibility of his accusers (Britain and France) has deteriorated significantly. So the current barrier to Saif al-Islam handing himself in appears to be the giant leap of faith that it would take. After all it is counter intuitive to voluntarily put yourself in prison knowing full well that politics rather then justice could keep you there for the rest of your life. Surely then it would be possible for the ICC to grant Said al-Islam bail until such a time as his guilt or innocence is proved provided that he is prepared to agree to monitoring conditions to prevent him fleeing.