Osama Najim was arrested amid claims he used detained migrants in ‘a form of slavery’, but then freed after after a mistake by prosecutors
A Libyan general wanted for alleged war crimes and violence against inmates at a prison near Tripoli has been arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin – and then released after an apparent mistake by prosecutors.
Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained on Sunday on an international arrest warrant after a tipoff from Interpol, a source at the prosecutors office for the Piedmont region confirmed.
But Rome’s court of appeal did not validate the warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) after the arrest was declared to be “irregular” by the city’s attorney general because it had not been preceded by discussions with Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio.
“As a result, the conditions for validation are not met and, consequently, a request aimed at the application of the precautionary measure results in the immediate release of the person received,” according to the court order reported by the news agency Ansa.
Nordio said earlier on Tuesday that he was evaluating the transmission of the ICC’s request to Rome’s attorney general.
La Stampa reported that Najim, who was wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as alleged rape and murder, is already on his way back to Tripoli.
He was reportedly chief of Libya’s judicial police and director of Mitiga prison, a facility close to Tripoli condemned by human rights’ groups for the arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of political dissidents and migrants and refugees. It is not clear whether he is still in either role.
He was arrested on Sunday at a hotel in Turin. He was in the northern Italian city for a football match on Saturday between Juventus and AC Milan accompanied by other Libyans, according to reports in the Italian press.
The NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans wrote on X that the arrest “came after years of complaints and testimonies from victims, sent to the international criminal court, which conducted a difficult investigation”.
Nello Scavo, a journalist on the Italian newspaper Avvenire, wrote about the general in his book, Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera, in which he described him as being “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”. In the book, Scavo alleged that Najim illegally transferred migrants “from both unofficial and official places of detention in Tripoli to the Mitiga facility, for the primary purpose of using them for forced labour as a form of slavery”.
The Libyan judicial police reportedly condemned what they described as Najim’s “arbitrary detention”, calling his arrest an “outrageous incident” on Facebook.
The arrest puts the spotlight on a controversial pact between Italy and Libya, signed in 2017 and renewed every three years. The deal, approved by the European Council, involves Italy funding and equipping the Libyan coastguard to prevent boats of refugees leaving the north African country. Humanitarian groups have criticised it for pushing people back to detention camps where they face torture and other abuses.
In November 2022, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), a German NGO, filed a criminal complaint at the ICC against several high-profile European politicians for allegedly conspiring with Libya’s coastguard to illegally push back people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of refuge in Europe.
Scavo told the Guardian that many testimonies from migrants and refugees presented to the ICC had provided evidence for the investigation into Najim. “It would be a turning point if a trial could be opened before the ICC, but I fear that many countries are afraid of what he might say, because these are representatives of authorities who have relations with Italy, with Malta and in general with Europe,” he said.
Source: www.theguardian.com