A federal US judge issued a default judgement against Khalifia Haftar, finding him liable for war crimes.
Judge Leonie Brinkema's judgement paves the way for families in three separate civil suits to seek monetary compensation.
The families filed their lawsuits under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, a law that allows non-US citizens to seek compensation from individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, allegedly committed torture or extrajudicial killing.
Haftar, a US citizen who had been a Virginia resident for decades, unsuccessfully tried to have the civil lawsuits tossed out under the claim of immunity as head of state.
"This is the culmination of years of work with Libyan victims against what the war criminal Haftar has done for so many years in Libya," Esam Omeish, president of the Libyan American Alliance, an advocacy group that serves as a lead consultant in one of the three lawsuits, told Middle East Eye.
War crimes by Haftar's forces and allied groups have been well documented and now with Haftar having now been found liable in a civil lawsuit, the Libyan American Alliance has said they hoped this will now lead to a path towards criminal prosecution against him.
"We call upon the Attorney General Mr Garland and others to look into the criminality of this US citizen who has committed egregious crimes in Libya," Omeish said speaking to the Middle east eye.
Zaid, the attorney for one of the group of plaintiffs, agreed that this case could soon go from a civil one to a criminal one.
"I have made this clear. I asked both the attorney general under the Trump administration and the Biden administration that under US law - which I actually helped work on 25 or so years ago, the War Crimes Act of 1996 - that Haftar as a US citizen can and should be prosecuted," Zaid said.
"And we still hope the Biden administration will do that."
Read more at Middle East Eye
We need your support
Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.
Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view
We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.
For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.
