World News | ICC issues 4 arrest warrants for alleged crimes in Libya, prosecutors say

United Nations, May 12 (AP) A judge at the International Criminal Court announced Thursday that a judge has issued four new arrest warrants stemming from his investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.

Prosecutor Karim Khan also said he had recently applied for two additional arrest warrants.

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He told the UN Security Council that he had applied to the court’s independent judges to unseal the four new arrest warrants and that they would make a decision “in due course”.

Khan called the warrant an “important step for victims’ and survivors’ rights,” but it was only the first step.

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In February 2011, the Security Council unanimously handed Libya over to the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The referral follows Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal crackdown on protesters. The uprising, later supported by NATO, led to the capture and death of Gaddafi in October 2011.

Oil-rich Libya has since been divided by rival governments, one in the east, backed by military commander Khalifa Hifter, and another in the west, in the capital Tripoli, backed by the United Nations. Each side is supported by different militias and foreign powers. Libya’s current political crisis stems from a failure to hold elections in December 2021, with rivals divided over issues such as the eligibility requirements for the incumbent prime minister and presidential candidate.

Khan, who visited Libya last November, said the arrest warrant was part of the ICC’s “renewed activity and increased focus” on Libya. He told the council that a team from his office would travel to the country again in the coming weeks and he wanted to set up a field office in Tripoli.

He said the ICC had been upholding the prosecution of Libya’s actions in Italy and the Netherlands since November last year.

The ICC Prosecutor stressed the importance of partnerships and the urgency to galvanize action by the Security Council and the international community to bring justice to victims. In November, Khan said his office joined a national coalition investigating human trafficking in the country.

Khan spoke emotionally as he spoke to victims and survivors in the western town of Tarhuna, where militia fighters loyal to eastern Libyan military leader General Khalifa Hifter evacuated the area in June 2020 following a failed capture of the capital. Hundreds of dead bodies were found in diatomaceous earth.

“They don’t realize that their lives matter,” he said. “There is a gap between the promise of justice, the prayers of never happening again (after the atrocities of World War II) and the specter of the international institutions that work for them. They see themselves still in refugee camps. They are misplaced. They live in the world in fear everywhere.”

Victims distrust the 15-member Security Council, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, which they see as “all empty talk because they haven’t seen enough change in their lives,” Khan said — a challenge for every country and nation. All need awareness and work to improve.

The 10 members of the Security Council that established the Rome Statute that established the ICC said in a statement that the court played an important role in international peace and security and welcomed its “concrete actions” in Libya.

Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

The United States is not a party to the court, but Mark Simonov, the legal adviser to the US delegation, told the Security Council that the ICC’s work in Libya “plays a key role in supporting the shared pursuit of accountability, peace and security.”

By contrast, Russia’s new deputy ambassador, Maria Zabolotskaya, delivered a scathing denunciation of the ICC.

She called it a “puppet court” with a “puppet prosecutor” serving “the collective interests of the West”. She said it was “officially an accomplice of NATO’s military aggression against Libya” that “totally destroyed Libya’s statehood and sparked a protracted civil war”. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)