Libya Conducts First Executions Since 2010, Rights Group Says
Human Rights Watch reports at least 31 people executed since late August following military trials, citing concerns over secret trials and torture-extracted confessions.
Libya has executed at least 31 people since late August, marking the country’s first known executions since 2010, Human Rights Watch said. The rights group documented these executions, carried out by the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), as of September 10.
Human Rights Watch warned that at least 50 other individuals held at Gernada military prison are at imminent risk of execution. The LNA, an east-based military force commanded by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, controls eastern and southern Libya. "The Libyan Arab Armed Forces are putting people to death after secret trials built on confessions allegedly extracted through torture, in courts that Libya’s own Supreme Court has said should not be trying civilians," Bassam Khawaja, HRW’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director, stated in a report. "Every execution carried out under these conditions is an irreversible injustice."
The LNA military prosecutor announced in late August that a firing squad executed 10 individuals convicted of murder and terrorism-related charges, according to the rights group. Many of those executed were arrested in Derna and Benghazi cities during or after conflicts between the LNA and opposing armed groups between 2014 and 2018, the report stated.
In September, Amnesty International reported that military courts in eastern Libya had convicted hundreds of civilians between 2018 and 2021 in secret trials targeting those accused of criticizing the LNA. At least 22 were sentenced to death during this period, with reports of torture used to extract confessions.
International rights groups have repeatedly criticized Libya’s detention and execution of individuals following unfair trials. Amnesty International has noted that Libya retains the death penalty for a wide range of offenses, and courts in both the east and west continue to impose death sentences for murder after "grossly unfair trials."
Libya has experienced instability and division since a 2011 uprising that toppled Moammar Gadhafi. The country has been divided between rival administrations in the east and west, each supported by armed groups and foreign governments.