Russia has stopped the United Nations sanctions commission from blacklisting pro-Haftar Al-Kaniyat militia and its leader Mohammed Al-Kani, for human rights violations.

Reuters said Friday that the United States and Germany proposed that the Security Council’s Libya sanctions committee impose an asset freeze and travel ban on Al-Kaniyat militia and its leader Mohammed Al-Kani.

Such a move has to be agreed by consensus, but Russia said it could not approve, saying its support in the future is possible, but conditioned by provision of an irrefutable evidence of their involvement in killing of civilian populations; a Russian diplomat told his Security Council colleagues in a note seen by Reuters. 

According to Reuters, the United States and Germany wrote in their sanctions proposal that international human rights groups and the UN Support Mission in Libya have “received reports of hundreds of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Al-Kaniyat militia against private individuals, state officials, captured fighters, and civil society activists in Tarhouna.”

The proposal said that under Mohammed Al-Kani’s leadership, Al-Kaniyat militia has reportedly carried out enforced disappearances, torture, and killings, adding that UNSMIL verified numerous summary executions at Tarhouna Prison conducted by the Al-Kaniyat militia on September 13, 2019.