ICC hearing puts Libya’s militia impunity on trial
The International Criminal Court (ICC) will hold a confirmation of charges hearing from May 19th to May 21st for Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, a former senior member of the autonomous militia of al-Radaa, as reported by Human Rights Watch on May 13th.
The prosecution moved the case from the events seen in the Mitiga Prison where prosecutors alleged that El Hishri was responsible for crimes committed between 2014 and 2020 against both Libyan and non Libyan detainees.
The ICC prosecutor accuses him of 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including torture, rape, sexual violence, murder and enslavement.
El Hishri was a senior figure in the Deterrence Apparatus for Countering Terrorism and Organised Crime, known as al-Radaa, a Tripoli based militia affiliated with the Presidential Council and formerly known as the Special Deterrence Force.
El Hishri is the first person to face justice before the ICC over atrocities in Libya since the UN Security Council referred the Libyan situation to the court in 2011.
German authorities arrested him in July 2025 on an ICC warrant and transferred him to The Hague in December 2025.
Libyan and international organisations together with the UN have documented inhumane detention conditions across facilities often run by abusive and unaccountable armed groups nominally linked to state authorities.
This hearing finally demonstrates the difficult and transparent line between official security bodies and militia power in Libya and how armed groups can operate with state affiliation while remaining shielded from judicial accountability in many forms.
As seen when Italy arrested Osama Elmasry Njeem, another alleged Mitiga co-perpetrator, in January 2025 but returned him to Libya instead of surrendering him to the ICC, a move later found by ICC judges to have breached Italy’s cooperation obligations.
Real accountability will depend on whether Libyan authorities will transfer remaining ICC suspects and whether armed groups tied to state institutions can keep avoiding criminal responsibility.
Human Rights Watch, maghrebi.org
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