Tripoli, July 28 (IANS): Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libya's former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, was on Tuesday sentenced to death in absentia by a firing squad, media reports said.

Saif has been held by a former rebel group since 2011 in Zintan city, which is not controlled by the Tripoli government, The Libya Herald reported.

Saif al-Islam was not present in court and gave evidence via video link.

He was sentenced in Tripoli along with eight other senior members of the former regime including Abdullah Senussi, the former intelligence chief and former prime minister Baghdadi Ali Mahmudi, who were overthrown in 2011.

They were accused of war crimes and suppressing peaceful protests during the revolution, Al Jazeera reported.

Justice Minister Al-Mabruk Ghraira Omran called on the international community not to accept the verdicts, saying that the judges involved were "working at gunpoint and in fear of murder or kidnap".

The trial commenced in April 2014.

Muammar Gaddafi was killed in October 2011. He ruled Libya for four decades.