Libyan general arrested in Turin on ICC warrant for alleged war crimes
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Arrest of Osama Najim puts spotlight on pact with Italy amid claims he used detained migrants in ‘a form of slavery’. 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.
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. Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio, is evaluating the transmission of the ICC’s request to Rome’s attorney general.
Najim 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.
The arrest warrant was issued by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as alleged rape and murder. The general was in Turin for a football match on Saturday between Juventus and AC Milan accompanied by other Libyans, according to the Italian press. They reported he was arrested at a hotel in the city.
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”.
