NEW YORK (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound is now fully in the hands of opposition fighters and the country will be liberated within 72 hours, Libyan U.N. envoy Ibrahim Dabbashi said Tuesday.
Gaddafi's compound is "totally in the hands of the revolutionaries," Dabbashi, a key figure in the Libyan opposition movement, told reporters at Libya's U.N. mission in New York.
He predicted that the city of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town, would fall within the next 48 hours and that the entire country would be under rebel control within three days.
"We expect Libya to be totally liberated and totally calm and peaceful within the next 72 hours," he said.
He said that Gaddafi and other top officials are probably scattered in houses across Tripoli, though they could be in an underground shelter.
The opposition is prepared to discuss the indictments of Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief with the International Criminal Court in The Hague but would like to put them on trial as war criminals in Libya, Dabbashi said.
The ICC indicted the trio for crimes against humanity and other war crimes in June. The court's chief prosecutor has made clear he would like all three handed over to the court so they can try them in the Netherlands.
Dabbashi, a veteran Libyan diplomat, was the first of Tripoli's envoys abroad to denounce Gaddafi's crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations in February. His defection to the opposition inspired dozens of other Libyan diplomats to repudiate the government and join the rebel cause.
(Reporting by Patrick Worsnip, writing by Louis Charbonneau; editing by Eric Beech)
