A similar position was taken by the ICC against Abduallah Al-Senussi who was kidnapped from Mauritania by the Libyan transitional government, which then stopped calling for his extradition to stand trial at the ICC. The ICC has ignored the human rights violations and inhuman treatment of Abduallah Al-Senussi in a militia's prison even though he has been imprisoned by the well-known jihadists, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. The head of the prison is the leader of LIFG, Mr. Abdul Hakiem Belhaj.
Mr. Belhaj is well known to the CIA and Western governments. The CIA arrested him after his escape from Kandahar, interrogated and charged him as a terrorist, then extradited him to Libya in 2002. In 2009, he and the LIFG members were released from prison under the General Amnesty Law. Belhaj terrorist record speaks for itself. In 1994 to 1997, he ordered the slaughter of 225 people and ordered the killing of the German tourists, Steven Baker and his wife Manuela Spiatzier in 1997. Nevertheless, the gentleman assumed a high-ranking position in Libya. He was appointed Minister of Defense, with the responsibility for Tripoli security as well as being the overall general manager of Libyan prisons and responsible for Al-Senussi and hundreds of others. Despite Belhaj's massive criminal violations of human rights including torture and summary executions, the ICC decided to announce its confidence that Al-Senussi was "in safe hands" and the ICC agreed to and energetically supported Mr. Al-Senussi's trial in Libya.
The NATO and small Gulf countries ignored Mr. Belhadj's claimed terrorist activities and accepted him as a political and military leader and above all as a businessman. Mr. Belhaj owned the biggest TV station in North Africa, the biggest airline company in Libya, cement factory, properties in Spain and Turkey and a private airport in Tripoli. This airport is reportedly used to channel and transport the jihadist militias from Libya to Syria and they were financed with billions of dollars in 2010 on orders of Belhaj. Mr. Belhaj's countless critics in Libya claim that he and his close associates, among others, are responsible for the criminal misuse of Libya's assets and sabotaging Libya's development plan worth 200 billion of US dollars according to the World Bank. Belhaj is one example to the warlords' lavish life style wherein ordinary Libyan citizens were caste into severe poverty.
Militias Human Rights Abuses
During the past six years, the militias' leaders and warlords committed heinous crimes against humanity, destroyed cities and Libya's vital infrastructures. A few of the thoroughly documented crimes include but are not limited to the following: People were burned, cooked alive and subjected to the most depraved forms of torture imaginable. Political prisoners, security personals and soldiers were thrown in the Iron and Steel smelting furnaces plant of Misrata. Moreover, the militias organized many businesses to extract and freely market the prisons' human organs. As the Libyan political scene inexorably grew more complicated, ISIS committed ever more atrocities, including but not limited to slaughtering and crucifying of thousands of people and often cutting and displaying their organs in public spectacles.
Unprecedented racial and ethnic cleansing, constituting genocide, was committed against five Libyan cities and its residents. As the UN has documented, approximately one-third of the Libyan people were forced to flee to neighboring countries. In addition, hundreds of houses were burnt in Bani Walid and five other cities in Warshafana. Furthermore, the destruction and flattening of the city of Sirte and the bombardment of residential populated areas in Benghazi and Dernah. Even the relatively cosmopolitan Tripoli faced a similar fate of ethnic and racial cleansing, initially concentrated in areas loyal to the Qaddafi government.
In addition to massive and systematic human rights abuses, the militias were ordered by their leaders to destroy essential Libyan security and economic facilities. In July of 2014, the jihadists set Tripoli airport and government aircraft on fire as well as igniting and destroying number 24 & 25 oil reservoirs.
Despite the militias destructive actions and brutal torture, the international community and the UN legal bodies have largely ignored all these crimes and declined to bring these warlords to justice
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