Six unsealed arrest warrants for Libya: What’s next?

Late last week, on 4 October 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC or the Court) granted the Prosecutor’s request to unseal six arrest warrants issued in the Libya situation. These six warrants, issued on 6 April and 18 July 2023 – kept under seal until now, concern war crimes allegedly committed in Tarhuna, a town southeast of Tripoli, that include murder, torture, sexual violence and rape. Today, Tarhuna is believed to have as many as 100 mass graves from the period of 2016 – 2020.  

For victims and affected communities in Tarhuna, and those working on human rights across Libya, this development may bring some level of hope for long-awaited justice and accountability for the horrors endured.  

“This development comes after a period of deep disappointment among the families, who had lost hope of achieving justice through the local judiciary. The arrest warrants came as a shock, but one filled with joy, mixed with the sorrow that has hung over mothers, widows, and the wives of the missing throughout the long years of searching for justice. These arrest warrants are an implicit acknowledgment and a step towards preventing the impunity that is so prevalent in Libya.” – Karim Salama, Director of Sawt (Voice) for Human Rights.

However, while acknowledging that making arrest warrants public may also help deter further crimes by the suspects and their associates, arrest warrants alone are not enough. To date, no suspects for crimes committed in Libya have faced trial before the Court, despite multiple arrest warrants being issued. This inertia is witnessed in the ongoing case of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, who has been subject to a public arrest warrant since 2011, with no signs of progress towards his arrest.  

Considering the evident lack of cooperation from the Libyan authorities to arrest and transfer suspects to the Court, these new warrants provide no guarantee of justice for victims. Their success can only be measured on what happens next and the Court’s willingness to push the Libyan and other relevant national authorities, subject to the suspects’ whereabouts, to cooperate.  

“When I received the news [of the arrest warrants], I felt as if this had never happened, and that my son had not been killed. I felt justice, and my greatest joy will be when they are arrested and handed over to the Court.” – the mother of a victim in Tarhuna said.

These warrants also come in the context of the Office of the Prosecutor’s plan to complete investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya by the end of 2025. Libyan civil society have raised concerns over the Prosecutor’s completion strategy, once again noting the lack of progress in cases and cooperation from authorities, casting doubt on what tangible progress the Prosecutor can make in Libya in the next year.  

The unsealed warrants remind of the plethora of crimes that the Court has yet to address, including crimes falling within the lines of inquiry where there has been no public information on progress of the Court’s investigations – crimes in detention facilities, and crimes against migrants. Our findings, and that of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Libya and other civil society, point to an abundance of information identifying Rome Statute crimes that have been and continue to be committed in these areas, yet no arrest warrants for such crimes have been issued to date.  

“It is important that the efforts of the Court continue in regard to prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes and reducing impunity, but it is more important that these efforts be serious, non-discriminatory, and non-selective, inclusive to everyone without exception, and that the files are not moved according to political whims. In fact, I cannot understand how the court ignored the violations and crimes against humanity taking place in the notorious prisons of Tariq bin Ziyad, Garnada, Al-Kweifiyah, and Al-Deterr, and why the people of Tawergha were not redressed.

The justice we want is the one that includes everyone and does not serve or keep silent about crimes committed by any specific powerful actor.” – Mansour Ati, Executive Director of Insaf Organization for Rights and Freedoms.

Looking ahead, LFJL reaffirms its call that the Court, and particularly the Office of the Prosecutor, must step up its efforts to provide some measure of accountability and justice to victims across Libya. Without alleged perpetrators standing trial in The Hague or further arrest warrants, the Court will leave a largely incomplete legacy of its work in Libya.