Italy seized more than €1.1 billion of assets controlled by the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s family including stakes in top companies, land and a Harley Davidson.

The seizure by tax police officers followed a request by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which is seeking the extradition from Libya of Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam on charges of crimes against humanity.

“The authorities today seized fixed and moveable assets, company stock and bank accounts connected to the family of ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage,” a police statement said, listing the value of the assets.

Among the investments held by Libyan sovereign wealth funds was a 1.256 per cent stake in the nation’s largest bank, UniCredit, worth €611 million and a 0.58 per cent stake in oil giant Eni, the top foreign energy producer in Libya.

Under Gaddafi, Libya briefly held the biggest single stake in UniCredit. There was also a two per cent stake of Italian aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica worth €40 million and a 0.33 per cent stake in carmaker Fiat and truck maker Fiat Industrial worth an estimated €53 million.

Police said they further confiscated stock in Serie A football club Juventus where one of Gaddafi’s sons – football-mad Saadi who is now hiding in Niger – used to be on the board and an apartment in one of Rome’s most exclusive areas.

The seizures included 150 hectares of forest on Pantelleria, a picturesque Italian island halfway between Sicily and the Tunisian coast where the Libyan strongman was rumoured to be planning to build a holiday village. A rogatory commission at the ICC requested the assets be seized in the context of its investigation into Gaddafi’s son and his former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, alsoa brother-in-law to the fallen Libyan strongman.

The assets – a business empire built up by Gaddafi starting in the 1970s – had already been frozen at start of the Libyan rebellion last year and police said it took time to work out the exact owners of the funds.