ROME (Reuters) – A senior member of Libya’s judicial police has been given a hero’s welcome back home after Italy unexpectedly released him from jail just two days after arresting him on a warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The man, named by Italy’s justice ministry as Najeem Osema Almasri Habish and listed in Libyan government records as Osama Njeem, faced war crimes accusations at the Hague-based ICC.
Video loaded on social media showed Njeem lifted onto the shoulders of supporters after an Italian government aircraft flew him directly from Turin to Mitiga airport, in Tripoli, on Tuesday night.
The Judicial Police in Libya posted a message on its Facebook page naming Njeem as a director of operations in the judicial security department and expressing its “sincere gratitude” to all those who helped secure his release.
The ICC is investigating alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Libya since the 2011 Libyan Civil War, including against would-be migrants.
Italian media reported that it had tipped off Italy that Njeem was planning to see a soccer game between Juventus and AC Milan, enabling him to be picked up in Turin on Sunday.
He was freed due to a legal technicality because the police who arrested him failed to immediately inform the justice ministry, as was required, an interior ministry source said.
Opposition politicians demanded an explanation from the justice ministry, recalling how Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had promised in 2023 to track down human traffickers around the world.
“When a trafficker, whom the International Criminal Court tells us is a dangerous criminal, arrives, you didn’t hunt him down. You sent him back home to Libya on a state plane,” former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said in parliament on Wednesday.
“Am I the only one who thinks you’ve lost your minds, or is this the image of a hypocritical and indecent government?”
Neither the justice ministry, nor the Rome appeals court which signed Tuesday’s release order, commented on the case.
Italian daily Avvenire, which first reported Njeem’s arrest, said he had managed a migrant detention centre in Tripoli as part of his role with the Libyan judicial police, and was affiliated with the powerful military Special Deterrence Force.
In another high profile case this month involving a foreign national, Italy released an Iranian businessman who had been detained on a U.S. warrant, in an apparent swap for an Italian journalist who had been detained in Tehran.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer, Paolo Chiriatti and Emilio Parodi, editing by Alvise Armellini and Alex Richardson)
