ROME — Italy’s justice minister strongly defended the federal government’s choice to repatriate a Libyan warlord wished by the Worldwide Legal Court docket, saying Wednesday that the court docket itself had made an “immense mess” of the case by issuing a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio instructed the decrease chamber of parliament that he was proper to proceed fastidiously with the Jan. 18 warrant towards Ossama Anjiem, often known as Ossama al-Masri, who’s accused of battle crimes and crimes towards humanity.
He mentioned that The Hague-based court docket later “corrected, or somewhat utterly overturned the earlier warrant” by altering the timespan of al-Masri’s alleged crimes.
“The court docket itself detected them and tried to vary them 5 days later, as a result of it realized that an immense mess was made,” he instructed the Chamber of Deputies.
The Italian authorities has been below fireplace from the ICC, human rights teams and opposition lawmakers ever because it freed al-Masri from jail on Jan. 21 and despatched him again to Libya aboard an Italian navy plane. Al-Masri heads the Tripoli department of the Reform and Rehabilitation Establishment, a infamous community of detention facilities run by the government-backed Particular Protection Drive.
The ICC warrant out there on the court docket’s web site accuses al-Masri of battle crimes and crimes towards humanity dedicated within the Mitiga jail in Libya beginning in 2015 which can be punishable with life in jail. The ICC mentioned he was accused of homicide, torture, rape and sexual violence.
Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19 at 9:30 a.m., the day after he arrived within the nation from Germany to look at a soccer match. The Italian authorities has mentioned Rome’s court docket of appeals ordered him launched Jan. 21 due to a technical drawback in the best way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.
Nordio repeated that argument Wednesday, saying that he solely acquired an “casual e mail of some traces” from Interpol three hours after al-Masri was arrested.
However he added that the textual content of the unique Jan. 18 warrant itself was filled with contradictions, particularly the timespan throughout which al-Masri allegedly dedicated his crimes. Whereas the textual content of the warrant spoke of crimes allegedly occurring between 2015-2024, the conclusions referred to crimes allegedly dedicated from “2011 onwards.”
“An irreconcilable contradiction emerges relating to a vital factor of the arrestee’s legal conduct, relating to the time of the crime dedicated,” Nordio mentioned.
When the court docket introduced it was unsealing the warrant on Jan. 24, it mentioned that it was issuing an up to date warrant to “right sure typographical and clerical errors.” The revised warrant speaks solely of alleged crimes between 2015-2024.
Human rights teams have blasted Italy’s repatriation of al-Masri as a severe breach of its obligations as a founding member of the court docket. In accordance with Article 89 of the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that gave start to the ICC, member states should “adjust to requests for arrest and give up.”
And opposition lawmakers have seized on the case to assault Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. They’ve demanded that Meloni herself transient parliament, and on Wednesday they held up indicators saying “Meloni the patriot at massive” within the chamber.
Italy has shut ties to the internationally acknowledged authorities in Tripoli, on whom it depends to patrol its coasts and forestall migrants from leaving. Opposition politicians have accused the federal government of primarily caving to the menace that Libyan militias might need unleashed boatloads of migrants had al-Masri been handed over to the ICC.
Italian Inside Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who additionally briefed Parliament on Wednesday, denied al-Masri was ever an interlocutor with the federal government on the migration difficulty. And he denied that Italy had acquired any threats in connection along with his arrest.
Opposition chief Elly Schlein of the Democratic Occasion blasted Nordio’s presentation, saying that his legalistic arguments in regards to the ICC warrant have been misplaced and that he had no function to guage an arrest warrant from the court docket.
“Minister Nordio, you didn’t converse to this chamber as a minister, however because the protection lawyer of a torturer,” Schlein mentioned.
Nordio’s assault on the ICC warrant is in step with the federal government’s general try and focus consideration on the judiciary’s function within the al-Masri saga.
Final week, Rome’s chief prosecutor knowledgeable Meloni, Nordio, Piatendosi and one other authorities official that they have been being investigated for allegedly favoring irregular migration by repatriating al-Masri. Meloni has spent days complaining about Italy’s politicized judiciary, echoing a frequent line of assault taken by her onetime ally, the late former Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
However Meloni has additionally acknowledged that nationwide safety points got here into play within the al-Masri case: In an X publish on Jan. 29, Meloni framed the problem as a matter of defending Italy.
“When the safety of the nationwide and the pursuits of Italians are in play, there isn’t any room for backing down,” she wrote.
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Molly Quell contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.