The International Criminal Court is due to receive a suit against NATO over the killing of Libyan ex-leader Muammar Gaddafi. But the Gaddafi family’s chances of finding justice in The Hague are all too slim, says journalist James Corbett.
In their suit, which cites the “deliberate killing” of a person protected by the Geneva Convention, Gaddafi’s family will target NATO’s executive bodies and the leaders of its member states, their lawyer, Marcel Ceccaldi, said on Wednesday.
“NATO helicopters opened fire on [Gaddafi’s] convoy,” the lawyer told Agence France Presse. “This convoy did not pose any threat to civilians. It was an operation to eliminate the Libyan leader, planned by the North Atlantic alliance.”
This would be enough to qualify the incident as “a war crime by Article 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute,” said Ceccaldi, who previously worked for Gaddafi’s regime and now represents his family. The exact date the complaint will be filed has yet to be announced.
The chances of Gaddafi’s family succeeding with their law suit can be regarded as “slim to none,” independent journalist James Corbett told RT.
“I think the International Criminal Court is just an extension of NATO powers’ foreign policy,” he said, questioning the ICC’s entire role in the Libyan conflict.
In June, the Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and the former regime’s intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi. The Court charged the three with “crimes against humanity” committed by pro-regime troops who used “lethal force” to quell the uprising against Gaddafi’s rule. This lead to Interpol issuing their own arrest warrants against the men.
Corbett underlines the ICC’s warrants were issued “despite not a single person from the Prosecutor’s Office so much as setting foot in Libya to check on any charges that have been brought.” With that in mind, it is hard to hope for any decision in favor of Gaddafi’s family, concludes the journalist.
Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, died shortly after being captured alive by National Transitional Council fighters near his hometown of Sirte on October 20. The circumstances of his capture are still unclear, but NATO aircraft are confirmed to have fired on his convoy as it drove from the city.
A day after Gaddafi’s death, Reuters reported that his widow was urging a United Nations investigation into the incident.
Muammar Gaddafi’s body remained on display at a shopping center in the town of Misrata before being buried at a secret location in the Libyan desert on Tuesday.