The Tarhuna Victims Association welcomed the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant against some of those accused of mass grave crimes in the city, most notably the bloodiest, according to what it said, “Abdul Rahim Al-Kani.”
The association said in a statement that the arrest warrant is a real test for the Libyan authorities in seeking to arrest and extradite wanted persons, which should have been the first to bring them to trial.
The association expressed its reservations about the Republic of Egypt harboring wanted persons and providing them with protection, especially since a number of their victims are Egyptian citizens who were unjustly and treacherously killed by members of that gang, according to the statement.
The Association called on the Libyan and Egyptian authorities, and every country that those involved enter, to work seriously and bear their moral and humanitarian responsibilities and what they pledged to do in international conventions, and to hand over the wanted persons to the competent authorities in Libya or to the International Criminal Court.
The association stressed that the families of the victims will not spare any occasion or means to achieve their goals, according to the statement.
The International Criminal Court had revealed that it had issued 6 international arrest warrants for crimes committed in Tarhuna during the control of the Al-Kani militia, which included the names of: (Abdul Rahim Al-Kani, Makhlouf Douma, Muhammad Al-Salihin, Nasser Muftah Daw, Fathi Al-Zenkal, Abdul-Bari Al-Shaqaqi).
According to the procedural history of the decision, four warrants were issued on April 6, 2023, while the other two orders were issued against the fifth and sixth on July 28 of the same year.
Public Prosecutor Karim Khan believed that lifting the confidentiality of the six arrest warrants issued against those wanted for Tarhuna crimes during the Kani militia’s control of it constitutes an important moment in collective action to achieve justice and accountability for crimes committed in Libya.
He added that the arrest warrant was issued confidentially in order to maximize the chances of arrest and reduce the risks to which ongoing criminal investigations might be exposed.
Source: International Criminal Court + Libya Al-Ahrar
2024-10-07 00:51:16