Human Rights Watch said today, Thursday, that a decade after the UN Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the ICC prosecutor, justice remains elusive, and impunity remains rampant.

Since 2011, multiple armed conflicts and political infighting have destroyed the economy, public services and disrupted the judiciary, and several armed groups supported by foreign parties have committed killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention of hundreds of thousands.

Hanan Salah - a senior researcher on Libyan affairs at Human Rights Watch - said that after a decade of impunity for serious crimes, it appears that the justice path that the Security Council has set in motion by referring Libya to the International Criminal Court has been completely frozen, and that council members should ensure that the court enjoys the benefits. Sufficient means and political support to carry out its vital work on behalf of victims of grave violations in Libya.

On February 26, 2011 - days after the outbreak of the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi - the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1970, which gives the court a mandate for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide committed in Libya since February 15, 2011, and the court issued warrants. Arrest of 5 people during its decade-long mandate.

the suspects

The court faces major challenges in implementing its mandate in Libya, and the organization said that without a police force, the court relies in its efforts to arrest suspects on the cooperation of the governments of the countries in which these people are present, and Human Rights Watch added that this cooperation is not sufficient.

The three suspects involved in the cases that the prosecution office is currently working on are still at large, among them Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi's son, for his role in the attacks on civilians during the 2011 uprising in the country, and Mahmoud al-Warfali, commander of a special forces unit of the armed group known as the "forces." Libyan Arab Armed Forces. "

Al-Werfalli is wanted for killing 33 people in 7 incidents between 2016 and 2017, and another in 2018 when he shot 10 people according to the charges against him, and the third suspect is the former head of the Internal Security Agency during Muammar Gaddafi's era, Tohamy Muhammad Khaled.

The attorney general said to the court that securing these arrests remains one of the biggest challenges for her office, and the court also relies on government cooperation to continue its investigations, including facilitating the collection and preservation of evidence.

Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi is one of those involved in the cases that the Prosecution Office is currently working on (social networking sites)

The Libyan split

Libya is deeply divided, as two authorities compete for control: the internationally recognized "Government of National Accord" in Tripoli in the west, and the rival "interim government" in the east of the retired Libyan general, Khalifa Haftar.

In February 2021, the United Nations brokered the formation of a new national unity government among the participants in the "Libyan Political Dialogue Forum". This group of 75 people negotiated a framework for governance and a roadmap for general elections. On February 5, it elected a 3 presidential council. Members headed by Muhammad al-Munifi, Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba as prime minister, and Dabaiba until February 26 to present his cabinet lineup for ratification by Parliament.

Over the past decade, the Libyan authorities have not investigated or brought to justice those responsible for serious violations, or were unable to do so. Local courts - which have been hindered by political divisions and armed conflict - are barely functioning, and are marked by massive violations of due process law, including forced confessions and ill-treatment, The inability to communicate with lawyers, lawyers, judges and prosecutors are targets of militias and face the risk of reprisals for their work.

Grave violations

Systematic human rights violations continue on a large scale since 2011, including the forcible displacement of tens of thousands of civilians, prolonged arbitrary detention, and thousands of political assassinations.

During the recent armed conflict between April 2019 and June 2020, conflicting groups were responsible for unlawful strikes by warplanes and drones, indiscriminate bombing, torture, unlawful executions, mutilation of corpses, destruction of civilian buildings, and the use of cluster bombs, anti-personnel landmines and booby-traps. Hundreds of residents of Tarhuna town are still missing after being kidnapped by a local militia and forcibly disappeared them.

The sanctions committee for Libya - mandated by the UN Security Council - included only 8 people in the individual sanctions, two of the militia leaders and six involved in human trafficking.

On June 22, 2020, the UN Human Rights Council established a fact-finding commission to investigate violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all parties to the Libyan conflict since the beginning of 2016, and due to funding restrictions associated with the Coronavirus crisis, the mission has not yet started its work.

The court prosecutor stated in November that her office led two missions to Libya in 2020, enabling it to gather important evidence, but she did not provide details about the ongoing investigations.

A decade after the UN Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the ICC prosecutor, justice is still elusive (Al-Jazeera)

The new attorney general

On February 12, member states elected to the court the British lawyer Karim Khan as the new attorney general of the court, and in 2017 Khan appointed an attorney for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the like until 2018 in the context of challenging the admissibility of Gaddafi's case in court.

As Attorney General, Khan will oversee the investigation and prosecution of serious crimes in a court that is straining under the burden of the current cases it is working on, for reasons including a lack of resources.

The court has 13 cases under investigation in addition to 9 preliminary investigations, and Khan's mandate will begin in June 2021.

In a move widely seen as an attempt to thwart the ICC's investigations in Afghanistan and Palestine, in September 2020 under former President Donald Trump, the US government imposed sanctions on the attorney general and another senior court official.

Human Rights Watch called on President Joe Biden to abolish the sanctions on the court, and to work constructively with it.

Hanan Salah said that the lack of efforts to ensure accountability for past and current serious crimes in Libya has only served to encourage those responsible for grave violations, and the need is greater than ever for the International Criminal Court to be effective and strongly supported by the international community, to send a message that there will be no tolerance. With impunity for mass atrocities.