Justice must be done if Arab Spring states are to move on

History will judge harshly any Arab post-dictatorship that failed to use the rule of law for the benefit of their own people, says Alasdair Soussi

Saadi Qaddafi, the flamboyant son of the late Muammar Qaddafi, looked a pitiful sight in a collection of images posted on the internet following his extradition from Niger earlier this month.

Paraded on Libyan state TV just a couple of days ago wearing a blue prison uniform and apologising “to the Libyan people ... for disturbing the security and stability of Libya” during the 2011 uprisings, these were very public signs of how far the once all-powerful Qaddafi family has fallen.

US diplomatic cables leaked in 2009 may have portrayed Saadi as among the least significant of the whole Qaddafi tribe – he is best known for his hapless and brief football career in Italy – but for a Libyan government trying desperately to put the past behind it, the 40-year-old’s capture represented something of a major coup.

Saadi’s extradition to stand trial in his home country for allegedly shooting protesters and other crimes follows the arrest of other figures from Libya’s authoritarian past. Not the least of these figures are Qaddafi’s other son, Saif Al Islam, and Abdullah Al Senussi, the dictator’s former intelligence chief, who was extradited from Mauritania in September 2012.

After the uprisings, these Libyan detainees joined a "rogues gallery" of ousted figures from Egypt – including Hosni Mubarak, his two sons and seven of his former security commanders – currently on trial in Arab Spring countries.

Yet, while the nature of Saadi’s and Al Senussi’s detention sparked controversy and the trial of Mr Mubarak has lurched from one dramatic moment to another, all of the Arab states struggling to emerge from years of dictatorial darkness share a common desire to overcome history.

European attempts to do the same in previous eras give both Libya and Egypt a useful model for combating their political demons and provide a pertinent reminder of the need to face up to a shadowy past.

Our modern ideas for doing just that can be traced to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The trials set an important legal precedent – but suffered from the overriding flaw of Soviet judicial participation, particularly as the Communist super power had indulged in crimes against humanity in the same period.

Away from the grand arena of international justice – where a UN-backed tribunal charged with prosecuting four men for the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri got underway in January – those legal examinations conducted under national jurisdictions are the most relevant of all examples for today’s judicial challenges in the Arab world.

Attempts to bring former East German leader Erich Honecker to justice following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 were farcical and inadequate.

They were eventually called to a halt because of Mr Honecker’s declining health. A better example – again in Germany – is of the ministry that was set up to oversee the opening of the Stasi files following German reunification in 1990.

The actions of the notorious East German secret police were finally shamed by Joachim Gauck, the ministry’s first head, who exposed its dealings to the German people.

The “Gauck authority” gave journalists, academics, artists and others the right to gain access to the Stasi’s murky undertakings. By 2011, a sizeable 2.75 million requests had been made to view files since the Stasi Records Act that had passed into law in 1991.

That Germany, via the Stasi commission, is still coming to terms with its past 24 years after reunification, is a signal to all post-dictatorship Arab countries of the timescales involved in overcoming a problematic period of history.

There are no quick or easy solutions to this. Yet, it should be acknowledged that there are stiff challenges involved for Egypt, Libya and a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq looking to bury their past through the rule of law.

In Egypt, the ousting of Hosni Mubarak was followed by the election of Mohammed Morsi and his removal via a military intervention.

The fate of Libya’s leader was bloody and instigated by mob rule, making the country’s subsequent attempts to seek closure through the courts exceptionally vulnerable to accusations of victors’ justice.

And, in Iraq – where Saddam’s trial was seen by many as undignified – chaos still reigns.

It is not for me to pass judgement on the merits or lack thereof of Libyan or Egyptian or Iraqi justice, but to simply assert that trying those implicated in past crimes during the dark years of authoritarian rule is not only supported by historical precedent but is a crucial part of moving from dictatorship to democracy.

History will judge harshly any Arab post-dictatorship that, when presented with the opportunity to make good, failed to use the rule of law for the benefit of their own people.

Alasdair Soussi is a freelance journalist, covering the Middle East and Scottish politics

On Twitter: @AlasdairSoussi