HRW says eastern Libya authorities executed at least 31 people after military trials

Mixed · 2Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday 14 October that military authorities in eastern Libya had executed at least 31 people, the first reported death sentences carried out in the country since 2010. 1 2 Right · 1HRW said forces under the control of military leader Khalifa Haftar and his clan carried out the executions between late August and 10 September, following what it called "grossly unfair military trials". 1 Right · 1HRW said another 50 people held in detention were at imminent risk of execution, in a prison about 100 kilometres east of Benghazi that is largely under military control and outside the jurisdiction of the judicial authorities. 1

Mixed · 2Bassam Khawaja, HRW's deputy Middle East and North Africa director, said the east had gone more than 15 years without an execution and had "shattered that moratorium in a matter of weeks", and he called on the international community and governments backing Haftar's forces to press for a halt. 1 2 Right · 1He also said the trials were secret, built on confessions allegedly extracted through torture, and held in courts that Libya's own Supreme Court has said should not try civilians. 1 Left · 1The Independent, citing Amnesty International researcher Mahmoud Shalaby, reported that the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) put people to death by firing squad after secret military trials, and that in at least two cases those executed had had their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment on appeal. 2

Left · 1According to the Independent, the executions began about two weeks after Major-General Fawzi al-Mansouri, a LAAF military intelligence chief, was killed in a car bombing in Benghazi, and on 23 August the military prosecutor's office announced the executions of 10 people convicted of terrorism-related offences. 2 Left · 1Amnesty said military courts in eastern Libya have convicted hundreds of civilians, that confessions were extracted under torture by the LAAF-affiliated Internal Security agency, and that detainees were forcibly disappeared for up to two years; HRW said families, journalists and lawyers of choice were barred from the trials and no written judgments were given. 2 Left · 1HRW said many of the 31 were arrested in Derna and Benghazi during the 2014–2018 conflict between the LAAF and its opponents and were convicted by 2021. 2

Mixed · 2Libya remains divided between a UN-recognised government in the west and the Haftar-aligned east, which the Independent says has Russian, Egyptian and Emirati backing; the death penalty remains in law for murder, terrorism and offences against state security, though sentences had not recently been carried out. 1 2 Left · 1The coverage does not include a response from the eastern authorities to the allegations beyond the military prosecutor's August announcement of executions. 2