Libya's rebels may be prepared to allow Muammar Gaddafi to stay on in his homeland if he leaves power as the ICC prepares to decide on an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader.
The rebels are in indirect contact with members of Muammar Gaddafi's regime and may be prepared to allow him to stay on in his homeland in a remote location, a spokesman says.
But Mahmud Shammam, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council, told the French daily Le Figaro the strongman and his family must agree to leave power and not take part in any post-revolutionary government.
"Yes, contacts are underway by way of intermediaries but these negotiations are never direct.
They sometimes take place in South Africa, sometimes in Paris, where Gaddafi recently sent an envoy to talk to us," he said.
"Our conditions remain the same. It is totally excluded that Gaddafi or members of his family take part in a future government. We are discussing with them the mechanism for Gaddafi's departure," he said.
GADDAFI CAN STAY IN LIBYA 'UNDER SUPERVISION'
"We think that he should accept that he has to go, or at least accept that he withdraws to an isolated part of Libya. We can't see a problem with him going to a Libyan oasis, under international supervision," Shammam added.
The spokesman said the NTC, which represents the revolutionary movement based in the rebel bastion of Benghazi, was ready to negotiate with "any technocrat or Libyan official without blood on his hands".
It was not clear, however, whether the rebels' response to reports of negotiations were well coordinated.
Last month rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said Gaddafi must leave Libya as a precondition for peace.
ICC TO DECIDE ON ARREST WARRANT
International Criminal Court judges will on Monday decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for crimes against humanity, the court said on its website.
The ICC prosecution has requested three arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, the court said.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo opened an inquiry into Libya on March 3. He has said that Gaddafi personally ordered attacks against unarmed civilians and held meetings with his son and intelligence chief "to plan and manage the operations".
A public hearing will be held at the court on Monday at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT).
Moreno-Ocampo said in a recent interview that he hoped the arrest warrants would be issued soon.
"We are working on the assumption he (Gaddafi) will be arrested by his people, by members of his regime" and if "that is not possible by the (rebel) National Transitional Council," he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo on June 12.
TRIPOLI 'NOT CONCERNED' BY WARRANT
Libya's deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaaim retorted that Tripoli was "not concerned" by ICC decisions since it was not a party to the Rome Statute that founded the ICC.
But Moreno-Ocampo argued that Libya is bound to cooperate with the court as demanded by a UN Security Council resolution adopted on February 26.
And he maintained that Libya would be legally required to act on the arrest warrants if they are approved by the ICC judges.
Established in 2002, the ICC is the world's first permanent, treaty-based court set up to try those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if the accused's own country cannot or will not do so.
