Published on : 15/06/2022 – 23:28
The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday announced the death of Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, a military commander in Libya suspected of war crimes, and terminated proceedings against him. The Court then officially closed its case.
With our correspondent in The Hague, Stephanie Maupas
The decision by the court, which sits in The Hague (Netherlands), comes more than a year after reports that Werfalli was shot dead in his car by unidentified gunmen, in March 2021 in Benghazi. The prosecutor did not provide a death certificate, but witness statements, photographs, and information posted on social media. And on this basis, the judges considered that the death was established.
Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli was the commander of the al-Saiqa Brigade, a special forces unit affiliated with Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army. The two arrest warrants issued against him at the request of the prosecutor for war crimes committed in the Benghazi region between 2016 and 2018 have been withdrawn. They had been issued on the basis in particular of several videos posted on social networks, implicating him in seven incidents. He reportedly ordered the execution of at least 33 people. And in January 2018, he also allegedly executed ten people in front of the Benghazi mosque.
Among the public arrest warrants issued by the Court, two others have still not been executed. The one targeting Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the one against Mohamed al-Tuhamy. Prosecuted for crimes against humanity for torture, he was one of the internal security chiefs of the Gaddafi regime during the time of the Libyan revolution. According to Libyan media, he died in Cairo in February 2021. For the moment, the arrest warrant issued by the Court against him is still valid.