Libyan human rights and political activist, Emadeddin Muntasser, has officially requested the US government to investigate war crimes committed by its citizens in Libya.

Muntasser said he met with US government officials in Washington on October 10 and submitted a formal complaint and request for investigation regarding alleged war and financial crimes committed in Libya by US citizen Khalifa Haftar and his three sons: Khaled, Saddam and Al-Saddiq.

“The complaint encompasses three volumes of more than three hundred pages, and lists the specific legal statutes which were violated, legal analysis, biographies of the alleged perpetrators, and catalogs an overwhelming inventory of evidence of these war crimes”. He said.

He indicated that domestic US laws have allegedly been violated by Khalifa Haftar and his three sons including the Neutrality Act (18 U.S. Code § 960), enlistment in foreign service as officers (18 U.S. Code § 959), and laws prohibiting committing war crimes (18 U.S. Code § 2441), genocide (18 U.S. Code §1091), and torture (18 U.S. Code § 2340A).

Muntasser explained that this complaint is the first step in a multi-pronged legal action against war criminals in the US, urging victims and witnesses of war crimes to support the complaint with evidence.

“It is imperative that witnesses and victims cooperate with US Federal officials and provide testimony, information, and evidence in order for justice to take its course”. He remarked.

In August, Muntasser filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Haftar of orchestrating war crimes.

Warlord Khalifa Haftar was one of dictator Gaddafi’s regime forces. In 1987, he became a prisoner of war during the war against Chad. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the US government and spent two decades in Virginia, close to CIA headquarters, where he gained US citizenship and established a close relationship with US intelligence services.

Evidence is mounting against the renegade General for war crimes in eastern Libya. In one video, Haftar ordered his fighters to execute prisoners of war immediately in the battlefield.  In another video, he told a meeting in Bayda that “the siege of Derna means choking”, calling for banning food, medicine and fuel supplies to more than 150.000 inhabitants of Derna.

Emadeddin Muntasser is a human rights and political activist as well as an author. He has written extensively on Middle Eastern politics as well as on constitutional and religious reform in the Middle East.