Amsterdam ? The International Criminal Court is in indirect negotiations with slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son about his possible surrender for trial, the chief prosecutor said Friday.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo told The Associated Press talks were being held through intermediaries, whom he did not identify, to assure Seif al-Islam Gadhafi that he would receive a fair trial and that he could be helped to find a new country of residence if he were acquitted.

He said he did not know exactly where Gadhafi is.

The 39-year-old son of Gadhafi was reported to be heading through the desert to Mali, where the former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi fled Wednesday. Gadhafi and al-Senoussi were indicted in June for unleashing a campaign of murder and torture to suppress the uprising against the Gadhafi regime that broke out in February.

Conveying a sense of urgency, Moreno-Ocampo said he believed Gadhafi also was in touch with unidentified mercenaries offering to find him refuge in an African country that does not cooperate with the court.

He mentioned Zimbabwe as a likely possibility, and said the court was in contact with other countries to prevent Gadhafi’s escape by denying any plane carrying him permission to fly through its air space.

“We are having informal conversations with Seif Gadhafi in order to see if he can be surrendered to the court,” Moreno-Ocampo said in a telephone call from The Hague.

Gadhafi was pressing for clarifications about his fate should he be acquitted, and Moreno-Ocampo said he has made it clear to the fugitive that he could ask the judges to send him to a country other than Libya.