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	Threat of trial keeps Gadhafi fighting

CAIRO—When Nigeria delivered exiled Liberian leader Charles Taylor to an international court in 2006, Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi, whose regime had armed and funded Mr. Taylor, called it an "immoral act" and warned that "every head of state could meet a similar fate."

Now that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into Col. Gadhafi himself, such fears may well be a reason why the Libyan leader has chosen to battle his own people instead of seeking exile like Mr. Taylor or Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the former Tunisian president now residing in Saudi Arabia.

Col. Gadhafi's behavior illustrates a thorny moral dilemma: An international drive to ensure ousted dictators answer for their crimes may, perversely, end up prolonging their rule—and extract a heavy toll in human lives.

"The very real fear that Gadhafi & Co. effectively may have no place to go outside Libya where they would be safe from pursuit…provides a compelling incentive to fight on," explains Wayne White, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington and a former State Department intelligence official.

For the international community, the dilemma has often amounted to a trade-off between conflict resolution and justice. In recent years, though, the arc of history has leaned toward justice, no matter the consequences.

In 1986, the U.S. convinced Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier to depart as he faced an uprising. "We were able to say, 'the only way you can stay is if you kill a lot of people. Wouldn't your life be better if you went to France instead?' And he did," recalled Elliott Abrams, who was assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs in the 1980s.

In South Africa, in the early 1990s, the choice was made to give amnesty for apartheid-era atrocities to those who confessed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—ensuring a democratic transition.

Britain's arrest of Chile's Augusto Pinochet in 1998 marked the first time in recent history that international justice caught up with a former dictator. In 2001, Serbia handed over former President Slobodan Milosevic to an international court in The Hague; in 2006 came Mr. Taylor's extradition, after three years in exile in Nigeria, to a United Nations-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone.

Concern that Mr. Taylor's fate would make other dictators more reluctant to part with power was widely expressed at the time, said John Campbell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The U.S. and other governments believed that the deterrent effect on others contemplating bloodshed would outweigh that concern, he said.

President Barack Obama's administration has moved the U.S. closer to embracing international criminal justice, though the U.S. hasn't ratified the ICC statute and doesn't recognize its jurisdiction, in part because of fears that American soldiers and politicians could find themselves prosecuted one day for their involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When the U.N. Security Council referred the violence in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, resulting in the indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the U.S. abstained. But last month, the U.S. joined the entire 15-member Security Council in voting to refer Libya's regime to the international court, and to slap an asset freeze and travel ban on Col. Gadhafi and his entourage.

The Security Council's referral gives the ICC jurisdiction over Col. Gadhafi's regime even though Libya hasn't acceded to the ICC statute. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he has started an investigation that focuses on alleged abuses by Col. Gadhafi, his sons and close associates during the recent revolt.

The Libyan regime, while denying it has targeted civilians, has followed the international sanctions and reports of the ICC investigation by intensifying air and artillery attacks on opposition-held areas. An ICC spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the court's investigation is prompting Col. Gadhafi to fight with more determination.

"It really relates to the question of unexpected consequences: an ICC indictment, or a possibility of an ICC indictment, can cause dictators to dig in their heels," says Mark Quarterman, who helped run U.N. investigations into the assassinations of Lebanon's Rafik Hariri and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, and is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Col. Gadhafi has angrily rejected suggestions that he might flee Libya, insisting that he still retains the love of most Libyans, and that the rebels will be crushed soon. "He can't imagine himself not being the great leader, and he'd pay any price to stay in power," says Ahmad Wahdan, a former Egyptian ambassador to Tripoli who has frequently met with Col. Gadhafi.

Even if Col. Gadhafi decides to run, his options are few.

Saudi Arabia, a conservative monarchy that abhors revolutions, has been the refuge of choice for deposed Muslim leaders: before welcoming Tunisia's Mr. Ben Ali, it harbored Uganda's infamous Idi Amin and former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

But Col. Gadhafi is unlikely to be welcomed by the Saudi royals: In 2003, Saudi officials say, the Libyan ruler ordered the assassination of Saudi King Abdullah in Mecca, a plot foiled by Saudi intelligence days before it was supposed to be carried out.

The remaining options aren't too appealing. Venezuela, rumored as a possible exile destination in the early days of the uprising, has ratified the ICC statute and would be obliged to extradite the Libyan leader. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, another staunch Gadhafi ally, is 87 years old; his successor would be likely to barter a troublesome Libyan guest for American favors, though Zimbabwe has yet to ratify the ICC statute and isn't obliged to comply with the court.And Iran still can't forgive Col. Gadhafi for the death of a prominent Shiite cleric who disappeared during an official visit to Tripoli.

"If you're in his position, why won't you fight to the very end?" said Mr. Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser in 2002-05. "You don't have any other alternatives."

—Stephen Fidler in Brussels contributed to this article.

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