AI calls on Libyan authorities to ‘reparate’ victims of Al Kaniat violence near Tripoli

MADRID 27 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The NGO Amnesty International on Tuesday called on the Libyan authorities to end impunity for crimes against humanity perpetrated by the armed group Al Kaniat in the city of Tarhuna, cooperating in the arrest of those accused and guaranteeing that their victims receive full reparation.

“The Libyan Government and the Libyan Arab Armed Forces must publicly apologize to survivors and relatives of the victims and ensure that all these people without discrimination receive full reparation, including financial compensation, as well as cooperate in the arrest and handover of the victims. accused persons to the International Criminal Court (ICC)”, said Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Eltahawy.

The organization has published a report in which it includes the cases of almost 160 people who were kidnapped by the militia, the majority between April 2019 and June 2020, and who were subsequently murdered or suffered forced disappearance. According to the Tarhuna Victims Association, at least 68 people arrested by Al Kaniat remain missing.

The crimes committed by the armed group also include torture, forced displacement, confiscation of property, which also constitute “violations of International Humanitarian Law and war crimes.”

For these events, around thirty people have been accused, however “only” five have been “arrested, found guilty and sentenced to death or prison”, in a judicial process “without guarantees in western Libya”, Amnesty has criticized.

In any case, these figures contrast with the 400 arrest warrants issued by the Tripoli Prosecutor’s Office, after the forces of the internationally recognized Government of National Unity, took Tarhuna in June 2020 and expelled the militia.

“These investigations did not analyze the role, complicity and command responsibility of the authorities and militia leaders who remain in power,” the NGO lamented.

“The population of Tarhouna is still shocked by the armed group’s campaign of terror. Those who survived know that these crimes could not have been perpetrated without the complicity of successive governments, de facto authorities, powerful militias and armed groups in Libya,” he said. Eltahawy.

Despite this, so far only 37 families have received some type of financial support from the Libyan authorities, while “others” have faced “obstacles, refusals or bureaucratic delays” to request compensation, the organization has denounced.

To prevent a repetition of these “horrible crimes”, Amnesty International has called on the international community to put pressure on the Libyan authorities to “detain members of militias or armed groups in state institutions without first” investigating people about “the there is reasonable suspicion that they have committed crimes under International Law”.