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(On 22 May 2026, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan addressed the United Nations Security Council on the Situation in Libya, remotely from The Hague. Below is a transcript of her remarks.)
Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to brief the Security Council today. Please allow me to also express my thanks to his Excellency the Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations for his attendance.
I regret that I am again unable to join you in the Council due to the non-issuance of a United States visa required for my travel to deliver my briefing in accordance with Security Council resolution 1970 (2011).
Mr. President, Excellencies, this week represented a true landmark in the fulfilment of the mandate set by this Council in relation to the situation in Libya. It was my honour this Tuesday to address the Pre-Trial Chamber together with the OTP Libya Unified Team, opening the confirmation hearing in relation to Mr. Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri.
In the first judicial proceedings stemming from this referral, Mr. El Hishri is accused of 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out principally in Mitiga Prison, including in the women's section of the Prison over which Mr. El Hishri had direct control.
Here in the ICC courtroom, in the presence of victims, before civil society advocates, together with representatives of the Government of Libya and so many committed to justice, we were able, together, to substantially undermine the impunity that has protected the perpetrators of crimes for too long.
Over three days, Mr. El Hishri faced the accounts, the voices of many Libyans directly affected by his alleged crimes. The voices of women, men and children who, in their own words, dared not believe that this day would come. Voices that told of the most deep suffering: of being shot and whipped, of being suspended from the ceiling, dragged by their hair, raped, and beaten until they bled, of children witnessing the violence being inflicted on their mothers, and of those children in turn being beaten, tortured, shot, and raped, Black African migrants enslaved, held in dehumanising conditions and subjected to extreme physical, psychological, sexual, and reproductive violence, including torture.
The actions of Mr Khaled El Hishri's and the RADA militia are not the actions of a legitimate law-enforcement agency, and Mitiga was not a normal prison. It was a system designed to inflict extreme pain, deep humiliation, and, ultimately, to destroy the lives of those detained. As the Court heard this week, Mr Khaled El Hishri was at the centre of this abuse.
Mr. President, Excellencies, we know from those women who have given their voice to this case, and from so many Libyans in the Hague with us this week, that simply to hear these accounts being put to Mr. El Hishri in a court of law has brought some measure of justice, of healing, a feeling that finally the equal value of their lives is recognised.
But this is just the beginning of the process of justice. Following submissions by the Victim's Legal Representatives and the Defence, the confirmation hearing has now concluded. In the event that charges are confirmed, our Office stands ready to commence trial promptly. We remain focused on ensuring that this process ultimately leads to the full recognition of victims' experiences through the conviction of Mr. El Hishri.
Mr. President, Excellencies, as we reflect on this significant, if only the first step towards justice for many Libyans, it is important to underline how this hidden story of Mitiga was finally brought into the open.
This would not have happened without the courage of the victims who called for truth and justice for what happened behind those dark walls.
Our collaboration with civil society has also been central to this case, and continues to be a core pillar of all our activities. I wish to extend our sincere appreciation to all victims' groups and Civil Society Organisations involved in documentation efforts who have contributed so fundamentally to what we saw in Court this week. Our commitment to continually build and strengthen our relationship with civil society is as firm as ever.
In the last reporting period, our Office had over 186 engagements with CSO partners, including through the virtual roundtable with over 35 organisations that I was pleased to participate recently. And in those discussions, I have been clear. The Office is working intensively to ensure that the presence of Mr. El Hishri in the ICC courtroom reflects only the start of a much more profound journey towards meaningful justice.
As reflected in my report, the Libya Unified Team is on the ground in many locations, collecting a wide range of information and evidence in support of our investigations into crimes related to 2014-2020 operations as well as further expanding accountability efforts in relation to crimes committed in detention facilities in both the West and the East of Libya. Indeed, currently, a total of nine public arrest warrants in the situation await execution. There remain other hidden stories of intense cruelty in Libya which, together, we can also bring into the light.
To those responsible for alleged Rome Statute crimes in Libya, to those carrying them out, to those facilitating them and ordering them, we have a simple message: Know that our Office remains committed to delivering accountability for your acts. And we are moving at a speed across our lines of inquiry to ensure the rights of those you have mistreated are vindicated, in a court of law, as we saw here in the Hague this week.
Mr. President, Excellencies, our report also recognises the encouraging re-commitment of the Government of Libya to engage with the Court. We have in our Report referred to Libya's article 12(3) Declaration under the Rome Statute which was made to the Court, last year. This has led to real improvements in cooperation, and has also led to the decision to extend some of our key lines of inquiry until the end of 2027.
The enhanced forms of engagement we have developed together in this framework have had a tangible, positive impact on our investigations and also with respect to the confirmation hearing of Mr. El Hishri.
Here we see, I believe, the true potential of the mandate provided by this Council. The ICC and the Government of Libya, engaging effectively, reducing the space for atrocities, holding perpetrators to account, and thereby strengthening the basis for stability and peace in Libya. Combined with our strong collaboration with civil society this represents a new coalition for accountability in Libya, under the legal framework provided by resolution 1970 (2011).
I wish to commend in particular His Excellency the President of Presidential Council of Libya Mr Mohamed Al-Menfi and His Excellency Mr Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, Prime Minister of Libya for the strong cooperation and support from their offices. I also wish to recognise the important cooperative role played by His Excellency the Ambassador of Libya to the Netherlands, Mr Zeiad Daghim.
However, as reflected in my report, the picture of cooperation from Libyan authorities is not uniform. While real steps forward are taken in some areas, in others we have seen stagnation, or even regression. It is my hope in particular that the momentum felt in the Hague this week may provide a catalyst for stronger cooperation and collaboration.
It is essential, in particular, that we receive better communication, a stronger response, with respect to the arrest of suspects that our Office is aware remain in Libya at present. A failure to do so represents a clear breach of the mandate provided by this Council.
Mr. President, Excellencies, the central role of partnerships in our efforts to deliver justice is further reflected in the fact that the ICC was not the only courtroom in which judicial proceedings have been seen in relation to the situation in Libya in this reporting period.
Our investigation with respect to crimes against migrants from the Horn of Africa in Libya proceeds at a positive pace, and has continued to benefit from excellent collaboration with a range of national authorities as well as with our Europol partners in a Joint Team. And this collaboration is delivering real results.
On the 27th of January this year Mr. Tewelde Goitom, an Eritrean national, was convicted in a Dutch District Court and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for human smuggling and extortion of migrants and refugees in Libya. A second defendant, Mr. Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, accused of similar offences, has recently been extradited from the United Arab Emirate to the Netherlands to stand trial.
In both of these cases, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor has provided concrete information and evidence to the Netherlands authorities that have directly supported national investigations and ultimately, through our collective action, has led to further results for victims.
This represents an undertaking made by the Office of the Prosecutor. Two years ago, as we launched our policy on Complementarity and Cooperation, we committed to increasing our support for domestic investigations into international crimes.
We now see that policy come to life in Dutch domestic courts for Libyan victims, and we remain strongly committed to further expanding the support we provide to national authorities across situations addressed by the ICC.
Mr. President, Excellencies, if I may, I would like to conclude as I began, with the voices of victims that we heard so clearly in the courtroom of the ICC here in the Hague this week, with the direct words of one victim reflecting on this moment:
"El Hishri's arrest bridges a distance many of us survivors of crimes at Mitiga thought would never close. We now carry not only renewed trust in the possibility of justice, but also a duty toward those who died, those still alive but made socially dead by torture and violence, and those who still cannot speak because they fear retaliation."
It is through these words, through the proceedings of the last days, that we see the deep relevance of justice to victims of conflict and atrocity crimes. We have seen the powerful hope that accountability can bring, even in the darkest of spaces. That is the same hope that this Council expressed 15 years ago when it referred the situation to the ICC.
Much time has passed since then. But we have seen clearly, without any doubt, that this hope remains. It has not been extinguished. Victims, CSOs, working together with our Office, have not allowed it to fade.
By cooperating more effectively, by partnering with Libyan authorities, by meeting the desires of the Libyan people for justice, and by showing clearly to those inflicting suffering in Libya, that they will see consequences for their actions.
In the coming period, we will continue to move to fulfil the mandate of this Council in a more profound manner.
To do this, we need your support, the support of all States, so that we may show Libyans that the hope given by this Council will now truly be vindicated.
I thank you.
More information:
ICC concludes confirmation of charges hearing in El Hishri case
