{"id":223096,"date":"2025-01-24T13:36:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/24\/italy-arrested-a-libyan-wanted-for-crimes-against-humanity-then-it-sent-him-home\/"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:36:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T13:36:34","slug":"italy-arrested-a-libyan-wanted-for-crimes-against-humanity-then-it-sent-him-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/24\/italy-arrested-a-libyan-wanted-for-crimes-against-humanity-then-it-sent-him-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Arrested a Libyan Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity. Then It Sent Him Home."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/23\/multimedia\/00Italy-Libya-01-bpfc\/00Italy-Libya-01-bpfc-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Italy Arrested a Libyan Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity. Then It Sent Him Home.\" title=\"Italy Arrested a Libyan Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity. Then It Sent Him Home.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Italian police officers swooped into a Holiday Inn in Turin in northern Italy and arrested a guest \u2014 the director of several Libyan prisons known for their inhumane conditions \u2014 they were acting on a warrant from the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The warrant against the man, Osama Elmasry Njeem, said he was suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, torture, rape and sexual violence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But two days after the arrest last Sunday, the Italian police released Mr. Njeem and escorted him back to Libya on a government plane. Pictures soon emerged on Libyan news media showing him cheerfully descending the aircraft bearing the Italian flag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His release has enraged the International Criminal Court and has alarmed human rights groups and Italy\u2019s political opposition, which accused the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of cozying up to the Libyan authorities because it relies on Libya to keep migrants away from Italian shores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou sent this man back for political reasons,\u201d Peppe De Cristoforo, an opposition lawmaker, told Italy\u2019s interior minister in Parliament on Thursday. \u201cUnfortunately the Libyan authority is complicit with the Italian government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Meloni\u2019s government has denied those accusations and attributed the release to procedural reasons. The Italian police, the authorities said, arrested Mr. Njeem before receiving an official request to do so from the justice ministry, violating the procedure and invalidating the arrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the time the justice minister finished assessing the I.C.C.\u2019s warrant, Mr. Njeem was already on his way home, government officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Italy\u2019s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, said Mr. Njeem had been expelled \u201cfor security reasons\u201d because he was considered \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Asked whether the release was related to Italy\u2019s \u201csubordination\u201d to Libya because of agreements on migrants, Italy\u2019s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, told Italian reporters that \u201cthere is no subordination to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Those explanations have not been persuasive to the government\u2019s critics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAm I the only one who thinks you have gone completely crazy?\u201d Senator Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister, asked in the Senate. \u201cHe was in jail and you brought him back home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since 2017, Italy has had a bilateral agreement with Libya that includes millions of euros in financial support to curb the flow of migrants from Africa trying to cross the Mediterranean and reach European shores.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Meloni\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fratelli-italia.it\/campagne\/immigrazione-tutti-i-risultati-del-governo-meloni\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">party has credited the deal<\/a> with reducing the number of launches of rickety boats from Libya and Tunisia. The prime minister traveled to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, several times last year and has called the relationship with Libya \u201ca priority for Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Human rights groups say that success has come at the cost of grave human rights violations. They say North African countries have abandoned migrants in the Sahara without food or water, or kept them in Libyan prisons, where they have faced torture, sexual violence and starvation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the director of the Mitiga prison in Tripoli, among others, Mr. Njeem, the head of the Libyan judiciary police, was accused of committing, ordering or assisting crimes against people imprisoned in the system since February 2015, according to the I.C.C.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A statement by the court said some of his victims had been imprisoned for religious reasons, on suspicion of \u201cimmoral behavior\u201d or homosexuality, or for the purpose of coercion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was the first major arrest of someone at the top of the Libyan prison system since 2011,\u201d said Nello Scavo, a reporter for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops\u2019 Conference. Mr. Scavo has been documenting cases of abuse in Libyan prisons for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Riccardo Noury, a spokesman for Amnesty International Italy, said his agency had documented cases of torture, rape, forced labor and other crimes in prisons overseen by Mr. Njeem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe had direct supervision and management of some of these centers,\u201d Mr. Noury said, adding that the accusations against Mr. Njeem had been bolstered by reports by other agencies and institutions, including the United States Department of State (where he is identified in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/report\/custom\/24e3399294\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">report on human rights<\/a> as Usama Najim).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Chantal Meloni, an Italian criminal lawyer and professor who also works for the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said Mr. Njeem\u2019s release was a direct affront to the International Criminal Court, and was particularly troubling \u201cbecause Italy is a founding member.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, many questions remained about why the Italian authorities did not act swiftly to address any bureaucratic mistake and instead rushed a man who was wanted for war crimes out of Italy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Piantedosi, speaking on behalf of the Italian government, said the decision to release Mr. Njeem was made with the courts. He added that the government would offer more details next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Islam Al-Atrash<!-- --> contributed reporting from Tripoli.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/24\/world\/europe\/italy-libya-migrants-international-criminal-court.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Italian police officers swooped into a Holiday Inn in Turin in northern Italy and arrested a guest \u2014 the director of several Libyan prisons known for their inhumane conditions \u2014 they were acting on a warrant from the International Criminal Court. The warrant against the man, Osama Elmasry Njeem, said he was suspected of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/23\/multimedia\/00Italy-Libya-01-bpfc\/00Italy-Libya-01-bpfc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[175402,3873,5220,175403,164056,148,165768,48648,2566,3096,156,18524,79768,108200,37415,175404,3012],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223098,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223096\/revisions\/223098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}