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US judge orders Libya’s strongman to compensate victims’ families

#judge #orders #Libyas #strongman #compensate #victims #families

A US judge on Friday ordered eastern Libya’s military chief Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to indemnify Libyan plaintiffs who allege he ordered the torture and extrajudicial killing of their family members.

The federal judge in the state of Virginia, where Haftar lived before returning to Libya, ruled that he had failed to cooperate with the court and that he had been ordered to pay damages to the families “by default”.

Haftar, an American-Libyan dual citizen whose name is spelled “Hifter” in American legal documents, can still appeal the decision and future hearings must be held to determine the amount of compensation.

Nevertheless, Friday’s verdict is a major setback for the military leader.

“Justice has prevailed. Hifter will be held accountable for his war crimes,” said Faisal Gill, one of the attorneys handling the cases, in a statement shared with AFP.

The civil lawsuits filed in 2019 and 2020 argue that Haftar, as head of the Libyan National Army stationed in the east, authorized the indiscriminate bombing of civilians during his unsuccessful campaign to take Tripoli in 2019, resulting in the deaths of the plaintiff’s family members.

They are suing Haftar under a 1991 US law, the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows civil charges against anyone who commits acts of torture and/or extrajudicial killings in an official capacity for a foreign nation.

The court had stayed the case ahead of Libya’s December 2021 election – but reinstated it after the vote was delayed again.

Haftar has also tried unsuccessfully to have the lawsuit dismissed and asserted immunity as head of state.

Oil-rich Libya has been locked in a bitter power struggle since the ouster of dictator Muamer Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, with a major split between the east and west of the North African country.

Two governments are vying for power: one based in Tripoli and another backed by Haftar’s army, which controls parts of the east and south.

Haftar, 78, is a Soviet-trained soldier who helped the 1969 coup that brought Gaddafi to power. After taking a high-ranking military position in Libya’s war with Chad, Haftar was taken prisoner of war and subsequently disowned by Gaddafi.

Eventually he was offered political asylum in the United States, where he lived for 20 years and was granted American citizenship and several million-dollar properties, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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