International Criminal Court opens hearings into first Libyan suspect

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have told judges that the senior commander of a Libyan detention facility murdered and raped prisoners, sometimes in front of their children.

The court in The Hague is holding pretrial hearings for its first-ever suspect from the North African country.

The defendant, 47-year-old Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, is accused of 17 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes at the infamous Mitiga prison in Tripoli between 2015 and 2020, a period following the fall of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

A deputy prosecutor told judges in her opening statement that detainees at the facility referred to him as the “Angel of Death,” citing one of the nearly 1,000 victims in the case.