Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to clarify why a Rome court refused to approve the arrest of a Libyan general accused of war crimes, allowing him to return home to a hero’s welcome on an Italian secret services flight in what critics believe was a tactic to shield alleged abuses committed in the north African country as a result of a migrant pact with Italy.
Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained in Turin on Sunday on a warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) before being freed on Tuesday owing to a procedural technicality.
Najim, who is chief of Libya’s judicial police, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as alleged rape and murder. He also presides over Mitiga prison, a facility near Tripoli condemned by human rights organisations for the arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of political dissidents, migrants and refugees.
In a statement on Wednesday, the ICC said Najim was released from custody and transported back to Libya “without prior notice or consultation with the court”.
“The court is seeking, and is yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken,” the statement said, added that it had engaged with the Italian authorities and asked them to consult the court without delay if any problems arose that would “impede or prevent the execution of the present request for cooperation”.
The arrest warrant was issued after many testimonies of his alleged crimes were provided to the ICC.
News of the general’s release was issued to the Italian media about 20 minutes after his flight left Turin’s Caselle airport. An image of him arriving in Tripoli to celebrations was shared on the Facebook page of Libya’s judicial police authority, which had called his arrest an “outrageous incident”.
In a document seen by the Guardian, Rome’s court of appeal did not validate the ICC warrant after the arrest was declared to be “irregular” by the city’s attorney general because it had not been preceded by discussions with Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio.
Andrea Delmastro, the undersecretary at the justice ministry, denied accusations that Najim’s release was a favour to Libya.
A source familiar with the situation said Najim had entered Italy from France on Saturday in a hire car registered in Germany. Accompanied by other Libyans, he attended a football match that evening between Juventus and AC Milan at Turin’s stadium. He was arrested at a hotel in the city by Italy’s anti-terrorist squad, Digos, after a tip-off from Interpol.
Opposition parties have asked Meloni to urgently explain the “very serious” development while calling on Nordio to resign.
“Last night, a state plane landed in Tripoli and brought Almasri home, an [alleged] torturer welcomed with applause and great celebration in his homeland,” a group of opposition parties said in a shared statement. “This is enough to ask for urgent information from Meloni and the resignation of Nordio.”
Ilaria Salis, an Italian MEP who last year spent five months under house arrest in Budapest after demonstrating at an anti-Nazi rally in the Hungarian capital, said: “The government must provide explanations, and they should do so especially for prisoners held in Libyan concentration camps.”
Others noted that the move appeared to contradict the Meloni government’s repeated pledges to crack down on criminals engaged in human trafficking.
“The Italian government claims to want to hunt down human traffickers wherever they are,” said Nello Scavo, a journalist with Avvenire who claimed in his book, Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera, that Najim was “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”.
“But when the possibility of bringing one of those suspects to international justice arose, Italy returned him to his country, where he now enjoys greater fame and greater consideration because thanks to Italy, a country with strong interests in Libya, he managed to escape the process of the international court.”
The Najim case has put the spotlight on a controversial pact between Italy and Libya, signed in 2017 and renewed every three years. The deal, approved by the European Council, involves Italy funding and equipping the Libyan coastguard to prevent boats of refugees leaving the north African country. Humanitarian groups have criticised it for pushing people back to detention camps where they face torture and other abuses.
Luca Casarini, the head of mission of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, believes the Italian government did not want to hand Najim to the ICC as it would expose Italy’s complicity in the abuses suffered by migrants and refugees in Libya as a result of the pact.
He said: “Because if people start talking [in court] it will show that what they do is criminal and a violation of human rights, and it is done in agreement with [European] authorities. This is a shameful, and I believe unprecedented, episode for Italy.”
The Guardian has written to Libya’s judicial police authority with a request for comment.
