(ANSA) – ROME, MAY 15 – The International Criminal Court on Thursday asked Libya to arrest and hand over Osama Almasri, a general and migrant detention centre head arrested and then released and flown home by Italy earlier this year, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan asked Libyan authorities to arrest “General Njeem Osama Elmasry, known as Al-Masri”, and hand him over to the Court “so that he can be tried for the crimes he allegedly committed”.
“We have issued an arrest warrant for him but he escaped and returned to Libya via Italy”, Khan said in a briefing to the UN Security Council, quoted prominently by Libyan media.
On May 5 the Italian government sent the ICC its report on Almasri, who was arrested by Italian authorities on January 19 on an ICC warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity but was released two days later and flown back to Tripoli on a State-funded secret service flight.
The court has asked Rome to provide all the information on why Almasri was not handed over and on the fact that Almasri was not searched and the material in his possession was not seized.
The Rome Tribunal of Ministers is probing what happened between the arrest on the ICC warrant of the Libyan general at a hotel in Turin at dawn on January 19 and his return to Tripoli on a State flight following his release by a Rome appeals court in Rome on January 21.
Almasri is wanted for allegedly torturing, raping and murdering migrants as young as five since 2015.
The release was ordered after Justice Minister Nordio did not respond to the Rome appeals court’s request to back the arrest.
Premier Giorgia Meloni, Nordio – over his alleged refusal to perform public acts – Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Cabinet Undersecretary with the intelligence brief Alfredo Mantovano are under investigation in the case after attorney Luigi Li Gotti filed a criminal complaint against them.
Li Gotti, a former centre-left justice undersecretary and earlier a neo-Fascist party member, filed the complaint to the State Attorney’s Office in Rome on presumed charges of aiding and abetting and embezzlement, due to the use of the publicly funded secret services flight to take Almasri back to Libya.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio has blamed errors in the ICC warrants, which he described as a “mess”, while Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has said Rome was forced to expel the general as a danger to Italy. (ANSA).
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ICC prosecutor Karim Khan asked Libyan authorities to arrest “General Njeem Osama Elmasry, known as Al-Masri”, and hand him over to the Court “so that he can be tried for the crimes he allegedly committed”.
“We have issued an arrest warrant for him but he escaped and returned to Libya via Italy”, Khan said in a briefing to the UN Security Council, quoted prominently by Libyan media.
On May 5 the Italian government sent the ICC its report on Almasri, who was arrested by Italian authorities on January 19 on an ICC warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity but was released two days later and flown back to Tripoli on a State-funded secret service flight.
The court has asked Rome to provide all the information on why Almasri was not handed over and on the fact that Almasri was not searched and the material in his possession was not seized.
The Rome Tribunal of Ministers is probing what happened between the arrest on the ICC warrant of the Libyan general at a hotel in Turin at dawn on January 19 and his return to Tripoli on a State flight following his release by a Rome appeals court in Rome on January 21.
Almasri is wanted for allegedly torturing, raping and murdering migrants as young as five since 2015.
The release was ordered after Justice Minister Nordio did not respond to the Rome appeals court’s request to back the arrest.
Premier Giorgia Meloni, Nordio – over his alleged refusal to perform public acts – Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Cabinet Undersecretary with the intelligence brief Alfredo Mantovano are under investigation in the case after attorney Luigi Li Gotti filed a criminal complaint against them.
Li Gotti, a former centre-left justice undersecretary and earlier a neo-Fascist party member, filed the complaint to the State Attorney’s Office in Rome on presumed charges of aiding and abetting and embezzlement, due to the use of the publicly funded secret services flight to take Almasri back to Libya.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio has blamed errors in the ICC warrants, which he described as a “mess”, while Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has said Rome was forced to expel the general as a danger to Italy. (ANSA).
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