A US federal judge on Friday ordered East Libyan leader Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to pay compensation to Libyans whose families have charged him with torture and extrajudicial killings.
A federal judge in Virginia, where Haftar lived before returning to Libya, said that he did not cooperate with the judiciary, and therefore could be sentenced “in absentia” to pay compensation to the families of the participants in the lawsuit.
Haftar, who holds dual Libyan and American citizenship and writes his name on official American documents, can appeal the decision, and other meetings are required to determine the amount of compensation.
However, this decision represents a major setback for Haftar.
“Justice has been served and Haftar will have to be held accountable for the war crimes he committed,” Faisal Khil, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said in a statement obtained by AFP.
Civil lawsuits filed in 2019 and 2020 allege that Haftar, as commander of the Libyan National Army in the east of the country, authorized indiscriminate bombing of civilians during his failed 2019 campaign to seize Tripoli, resulting in the deaths of members of the complainants’ families. The families wrote at the time that Haftar “participated in a random war against the Libyan people: killed many men, women and children during bombings and tortured other civilians.”
The US judiciary froze the case ahead of the Libyan elections, which were to be held in December 2021, so as not to affect the voting process. Since these elections were not held, the case was reopened. Haftar tried to refute the case, stressing that he enjoys immunity as head of state.
Haftar, 78, is a Soviet-trained military man who took part in the 1969 coup that overthrew the regime of King Idris al-Senussi and brought Muammar Gaddafi to power.
