ROME: Italian police have arrested a Libyan warlord on a warrant from the International Criminal Court, the justice ministry, Italian news reports and a Libyan official said Tuesday.
Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force. The SDF acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.
Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Recently, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants over alleged crimes in Libya beyond the civil war, including in detention facilities where human rights groups have documented abuses.
Italian newspapers Avvenire and La Stampa reported that al-Masri was arrested in Turin on Sunday on an warrant from the Hague-based court after he attended a Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before. His lawyer Daniele Folino confirmed the arrest, but said he couldn’t provide details since he hadn’t been officially appointed.
The Justice Ministry said in a statement that the court had requested al-Masiri's arrest. “Given the complex correspondence, the minister is considering the formal transmission of the ICC request to the chief prosecutor's office in Rome,” a statement said.
Ali Omar, head of Libya Crimes Watch, a local watchdog, hailed Italy’s move as a “positive initiative” on the road to holding those behind atrocities against Libyans and migrants accountable, including al-Masri.
“This move will certainly contribute to reducing the systematic violations committed on a large scale in the prisons of eastern and western Libya,” he told The Associated Press.
He called on the Italian government to hand al-Masri to the ICC to face justice, since the Libya judiciary is “unwilling, unable and incapable of prosecuting those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Abdel-Moaz Nouri Abu Arqoub, the head of the RRI center in the western town of Ain Zara, condemned the arrest as “an arbitrary detention.” A statement late Monday posted on the institution's Facebook page called on authorities to “bear their responsibility towards this (Italy’s) shameful position.”
A spokesman for the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tripoli didn’t answer calls seeking comment.
The Hague-based court has issued a handful of new warrants against Libyans in the past year after opening an investigation into Libya in 2011 at the request of the U.N. Security Council. In October, it unsealed arrest warrants against six men, but other warrants have remained sealed. Al-Masri's name doesn't appear on any of the public warrants.
The ICC says it currently has 11 arrest warrants, for which seven people are still at large. In a recent report, the ICC prosecutor's office said it expected to issue new warrants in 2025 related to crimes in detention facilities.
Libya has been divided for years between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. Currently, it is governed by Abdul-Hami Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli and by the administration of Prime Minister Ossama Hammad in the east.
Western Libya is controlled by an array of lawless militias allied with Dbeibah’s government, while forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter control the east and south.
Mediterranea Saving Humans, a humanitarian organization that has denounced the atrocities against migrants in Libyan detention centers, said al-Masri's arrest followed “years of complaints and testimonies from victims made to the International Criminal Court, which conducted a difficult investigation.”
The group has long condemned the Italian government's financial support of Libya's coast guard to stem migration, and noted that al-Masri was detained in Italy.
“He was hiding in Italy, of course, because here the traffickers feel safe,” the group said in a statement, suggesting that Italian authorities didn't want the information to be released but that it leaked out thanks to reporting by the Avvenire journalist Nello Scavo, who has long documented atrocities against migrants in Libya.
In a social media post, Scavo cited “dedicated sources” in reporting the arrest.