ICC unseals six arrest warrants for alleged war crimes in Libya

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court on Friday unsealed arrest warrants against six members of a Libyan militia group charged with war crimes.

In 2023, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said arrest warrants had been issued by court judges for war crimes in Libya since 2011, but these warrants were under seal, so it was not clear who was targeted or what the specific charges were.

The warrants released on Friday made it clear six individuals, all Libyan nationals, had been charged with war crimes including murder, torture, cruel treatment and sexual violence, and some also with rape.

Libya has known little peace since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising and the oil-producing country split in 2014 between warring eastern and western factions. Major fighting ended in 2020 but there has been little progress towards a political settlement and armed factions still dominate on the ground.

According to the ICC the suspects in the six arrest warrants were all members of the Kaniyat militia that was allied to the eastern Libyan National Army and helped it mount a failed 14-month assault on the capital Tripoli in the west.

They were sanctioned by the United States and Britain in 2020, when the assault collapsed, and in 2021 over alleged human rights abuses.

The turmoil in Libya was referred to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council in 2011 and the court has said the focus of its investigation was alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since Feb. 15 of that year.