On 4 October 2024, the International Criminal Court unsealed arrest warrants issued by court judges in 2023 for six members of the Al Kaniyat Libyan militia group for alleged war crimes, including murder, torture, cruel treatment, and sexual violence. Up until now, though the arrest warrants had been issued, they had been kept sealed, leaving the identities of the members and the specific charges unclear. The warrants were issued after requests from the Office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad Khan K.C. in November of 2022 and April of 2023 under seal so as to maximise arrest opportunities and limit risks to ongoing criminal investigations, according to a statement by Khan to the ICC.

Khan believes the unsealing of the warrants to be the most effective way to achieving arrest and surrender, according to his statement to the ICC. According to Khan, this move is most effective in seeking accountability and delivering justice for the crimes committed by the six members of the Al Kaniyat militia. According to the Libya Observer, the Tarhuna Victims Association from Tarhuna, a village located 65 km southeast of Libya’s capital of Tripoli controlled by the Al Kaniyat militia, welcomed the issuance of the warrants, but condemned Libyan authorities for being unable to bring the perpetrators to trial, stressing a need for local authorities to work to bring wanted persons to Libyan courts or the ICC.

Although this move is a step in a positive direction, it seems to be a case of “too little too late”. The Tarhuna Victims’ Association rightly states that Libyan authorities need not the express permission of the ICC in the forms of these warrants to bring these criminals to justice. Understandably, Khan has been working to the best of his ability with local authorities to promote ongoing criminal investigations while trying to bring the six members of the militia in to the ICC for trial, which is a delicate balance to maintain, but the possible issuance of the warrants in an unsealed manner in the first place in 2023 would potentially have made it possible to bring the perpetrators into the ICC sooner, as Libyan authorities had already shown low capability in apprehending the criminals in previous years.

The ICC opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya in 2011 after a recommendation from the U.N. Security Council. Libya has been at war, according to Reuters, since 2011, after a NATO-backed uprising split the country into warring factions. The Al Kaniyat militia controlled Tarhuna from 2015 until 2020, though hundreds of bodies have been discovered in mass graves since 2020, allegedly victims of the Al Kaniyat militia, according to an ICC statement by Prosecutor Khan. Though major fighting in Libya had all but ended by 2020, militant groups continued populating the ground, with a political settlement seeming unlikely.

The unsealing of the arrest warrants will no doubt make it clear not only to the world, but to the perpetrators themselves, that they are actively wanted for their crimes. This is a major step in finding justice for the multitudes of crimes committed since the beginning of the conflict in Libya in 2011, especially at the hands of the Al Kaniyat militia. Though only time will tell, the authorities are confident that the unsealing will help apprehend these criminals in the most effective manner possible and bring justice to the victims of these abuses.