Geneva – An investigation by six UN human rights officers has in his report on Thursday indicted all Libyan officials of Libyan war crimes.
The investigators said in Geneva that all sides in Libya have committed war crimes and other human rights abuses in the past two years and those responsible should face investigation and prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Zeid al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the team compiled evidence of executions of captives, assassinations of prominent women activists, widespread torture and sexual crimes.
“It also includes abductions, indiscriminate military attacks on civilian areas, and abuse of children since the start of 2014.
al-Hussein said the 95-page report, based on interviews with 200 witnesses and victims and 900 individual complaints, catalogues atrocities in a country that dissolved into chaos after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
He noted that since 2014 Libya has had two competing governments, both supported by loose alliances of former rebels and armed brigades.
al-Hussein said a unity government has been nominated under a U.N.-backed plan but has yet to win approval or move to Libya.
The commissioner said one of the most striking elements of the report lies in the complete impunity which continues to prevail in Libya and the systemic failures of the justice system.
Gurdip Sangha, Libya Human Rights Desk Officer, said UN had recorded names of those allegedly responsible for the atrocities.
He said the agency was following the process of engagement with appropriate “bodies” such as the ICC, which has jurisdiction to hear the case.
Sangha, who declined to say how many such names there were, hinted that there were varying degrees of evidence and corroboration in different cases.
Islamic State militants took control of Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte last year, and Libya’s coast has served as a major hub for migrants and refugees on their way to Europe.
Sangha said the investigators heard credible reports of women detained in migrant camps being raped by guards.
“They also gathered evidence of torture in at least 22 places of detention.
“Boys aged 10 and 14 described being sexually abused after being forced into religious and military training with Islamic State.’’
The desk officer said one boy said while describing most evenings in the service of an Islamist foreign fighter “I knew what I had to do; I had to take my clothes off and turn around and bend over facing the wall’’.
The other said he was raped by several fighters in order to “break me so that I will never say no,’’ he said. (Reuters/NAN)