The Guardian
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.