A report published by the American Wall Street Journal revealed that retired Libyan Major General Khalifa Haftar is facing lawsuits in the United States for committing war crimes in Libya, targeting his real estate properties in America, which are worth millions of dollars in compensation for the victims who have suffered Tortured by the warlord and his forces.
The newspaper said that the lawsuits filed by Libyan citizens seeking to achieve justice accuse Haftar of committing war crimes, including bombing the homes of unarmed civilians and torturing and executing prisoners in various Libyan cities.
She pointed out that Haftar managed, during his two decades in the United States, after he led a campaign backed by the CIA against the regime of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the eighties, to amass a wealth of real estate and other properties valued at Millions of dollars including a luxury home in Virginia.
A UN report reveals the deployment of Western mercenaries in support of Haftar (Al-Jazeera)
Haftar and his family have also bought - since his return to Libya in 2011 - 17 properties worth about $ 8 million in Virginia alone, according to public property records and documents issued by US courts, and a document to track assets collected by private advisors, and supplied the internationally recognized Libyan government. The Wall Street Journal with a copy.
According to the newspaper's report, most of Haftar's properties are managed by a series of companies, and supervised by his son, Uqba Haftar, and among those properties is a luxury farm and apartment in Falls Church, Virginia, and Haftar’s son bought a horse farm for $ 700,000 in Boyce, Virginia, last July.
The newspaper pointed out that 3 groups of Libyan civilians seeking justice for separate alleged war crimes that took place in Libya filed cases against Haftar before two federal courts in Virginia and Washington earlier this year.
These lawsuits are based on the fact that Haftar holds American citizenship, and has resided for a long time in Virginia, where he owns a lot of real estate, which makes the consideration of war crimes cases that he committed in Libya the prerogative of American courts.
Mass grave in Tarhuna, Libya (social networking sites)
One of the lawsuits was filed with the Eastern District Court in Virginia, accusing the military commander of refusing to allow the evacuation of civilians from the city of Benghazi during the 2016-2017 blockade, and the bombing of civilian areas, which resulted in the killing of children.
The lawsuit filed with the Eastern District Court in Virginia also accuses Haftar of refusing to allow civilians to evacuate the people from a neighborhood in the city of Benghazi during the siege he imposed on the city in 2016-2017, and also accuses him of bombing residential areas, killing civilians, including children.
In the other lawsuit, a Libyan woman, Mona Al-Suwaid, accuses Haftar's forces, the Libyan National Army, of bombing her family's home in Benghazi, and kidnapping and torturing her father and brother before they were killed during the first days of the attack by the Libyan warlord and his forces on Islamists in the city in 2014.
The newspaper said that Haftar's defense team tried to persuade the court that the retired general has immunity, but the judge rejected those allegations, granting the Foreign Ministry two months to look into the matter.
It quoted a lawyer in one of the cases filed against Haftar as saying, "We believe that we will win and a fair decision will be made (in the case)."