Libya: Senior commander linked to Haftar surrenders

A senior military commander of the eastern Libyan army behind a string of executions in Libya and wanted by the International Criminal Court has announced that he will surrender himself to the army’s military police.

“After instructions from the General Command and the Commander-in-Chief Khalifa Haftar about my arrest, I immediately received the instructions and I will hand myself over to the military police in Al-Marj city [the army’s headquarters] to complete the ICC investigations with me,” Mahmoud Al-Werfalli said in a video posted online.

Read: Human rights group: Dozens of civilians facing death risk at hands of Haftar forces

Al-Werfalli is a general in the special forces linked with Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) which is currently in control of the city of Benghazi. He came to the international community’s attention after a video surfaced of him last year conducting a mass execution of a dozen prisoners.

The ICC has called for Al-Werfalli’s arrestt since August 2017 and for him to be extradited for investigation for his link to war crimes in the country but the LNA has failed to comply stating that they would carry their own investigation. They have so far failed to charge Al-Werfalli.

Last month, images surfaced online showing Al-Werfalli carrying out field executions of ten people at the site of a terrorist attack in Benghazi.

The UN Support Mission in Libya demanded his immediate extradition and expressed its alarm at the “brutal and outrageous summary executions”.