The International Criminal Court today released arrest warrants issued against six members of a Libyan militia on war crimes charges.

In 2023, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said that arrest warrants had been issued by war crimes judges in Libya since 2011, but the targets of those warrants and the specific charges were not published.

The warrants released today showed that six people, all Libyan nationals, are accused of war crimes, including murder, torture, abuse and sexual violence, and some also of rape.

After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya descended into chaos and is now ruled by two warring factions. One in western Libya based in Tripoli and Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeiba, a government recognized by the UN, and another in eastern Libya, where the Parliament is based and linked to the camp of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose stronghold is in Benghazi.

Fierce fighting ended in 2020, but little progress has been made towards a political settlement since then, and armed factions still dominate the field.

According to the ICC, the suspects in the six warrants were all members of the Qaniyat militia – an ally of the Libyan National Army in eastern Libya – which helped it launch a 14-month offensive on the capital Tripoli, in western Libya, aimed at he understands her, but to no avail.

The individuals were the target of US and British sanctions imposed in 2020, when the attack failed, and in 2021 for alleged human rights abuses.

The case of the unrest in Libya was referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council in 2011 and the Court emphasized that the focus of its investigation is the alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since February 15 of that year.