UN demands handover of Libya commander after new killings

The Libyan National Army forces have been fighting Daesh militias in Benghazi since 2014. (AFP)

TRIPOLI/TUNIS: The UN demanded on Thursday the immediate surrender of a Benghazi commander wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes charges after evidence emerged suggesting he had carried out new summary executions in Libya.
The UN Libya mission, UNSMIL, suggested in a tweet that the gunman was Mahmoud Al-Werfalli, a special forces commander wanted by ICC for allegedly carrying out a number of similar killings.
“(The UN) demands the handing over of Mahmoud Al-Werfalli immediately to (the ICC) as it documented at least 5 similar cases, in 2017 alone, carried out or ordered by Al-Werfalli,” UNSMIL said on its Twitter account.
“Those responsible for committing or ordering summary executions are criminally liable under international law.”
The UN Libya mission said it was alarmed by reports of “brutal and outrageous summary executions” in the eastern city of Benghazi on Wednesday, after pictures emerged appearing to show at least nine people being shot dead at the site of a twin car bombing.
The photos, which were posted on social media and in local media, appear to show executions in front of Benghazi’s Bayaat Al-Radwan mosque, where a twin car bombing left at least 35 people dead.
One of the pictures shows a gunman dressed in military camouflage, pointing a weapon at the head of the first of a row of blindfolded men kneeling in blue jumpsuits in front of damaged mosque gates.
Another photo shows all but three of the people slumped forward on the road as the gunman makes his way along the line. It was unclear who the men were.
Al-Werfalli commands an elite unit, Al-Saiqa Brigade, attached to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls Benghazi whose forces dominate the east of the North African country.
When the ICC issued a warrant for Al-Werfalli’s arrest last August over summary executions in which at least 33 people were killed in 2016 and 2017, Haftar’s forces insisted he was in their custody and would face a military trial.
The latest executions came as UN envoy Ghassan Salame was in eastern Libya for talks with Haftar as part of his efforts to end the political chaos that has gripped the country since longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was ousted and killed in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Haftar, a divisive figure in Libya, has increasingly been courted by the international community as he has gained power on the ground. He is considered a likely candidate in elections that the UN has said it hopes can be organized by the end of 2018.
A UN-backed unity government based in the capital Tripoli has struggled to assert its authority outside western Libya. Haftar supports a rival administration based in the east.
Salame presented a plan to the UN Security Council in September to hold fresh parliamentary and presidential elections later this year, but analysts are skeptical they will take place.
Clashes between rival militias are common, with fighting at Tripoli’s airport last week leaving 20 dead and forcing the cancelation of all flights for five days.
Witnesses said that Werfalli had carried out the public executions of the suspected militants in revenge for the Tuesday attack, which killed at least 37 people outside a mosque in the heart of the city.
In the video, a uniformed officer, said to be Werfalli, is seen making the blindfolded suspects in blue prison uniform kneel in front of him before shooting them one after the other.
Their bodies are then thrown on the back of a pickup truck to applause from the crowd.