The Amnesty International report revealed widespread human rights violations committed by Haftar in the east of the country through unfair trials of civilians critical of his actions.
While the actions of Haftar’s militias in Tarhuna and southern Tripoli still bear witness to their criminality, this report comes to reveal another chapter of the chapters on the violations of these militias.
Unfair trials
An Amnesty International report said that Haftar’s military courts in eastern Libya have convicted hundreds in secret and grossly unfair trials aimed at punishing his opponents and critics, and that at least 22 people were sentenced to death by those courts and hundreds of others were imprisoned between 2018 and 2021.
Legally void
The report added that the House of Representatives had approved in 2017 a law granting jurisdiction to military courts to try civilians accused of “terrorism”, while the Minister of Justice in the Government of National Accord confirmed in 2020 that the law issued by the House of Representatives was not enforceable, and that only civilian courts had jurisdiction over civilians.
“Military trials in eastern Libya are conducted in secret, sometimes in the absence of lawyers and the accused,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at Amnesty International.
Al Kaniyat crimes
Haftar’s forces are accused of crimes against humanity and are under domestic and international prosecution. Last November, the US government included Haftar’s Al-Kani militia on the sanctions list. This is due to its war crimes in Tarhuna, after the discovery of more than 27 mass graves containing more than 270 bodies that were buried by those militias.
Aggression against Tripoli
In April 2019, Haftar’s forces launched an attack on the capital, Tripoli, with the aim of controlling it, killing more than 288 civilians, including more than 40 children and thousands wounded, and inflicting extensive damage to the infrastructure, especially in areas south of the capital.
The military college massacre
A foreign aircraft supporting Haftar also killed more than 30 students at the Tripoli Military College in January 2020 after they were targeted in the college’s training camp, and more than 50 people were killed in July 2019 after the sheltering center for illegal immigrants was targeted in Tajoura by a foreign aircraft supporting Haftar.
