A United Nations report has revealed that a UAE firm has violated arms embargo on Libya as it sold Khalifa Haftar's forces an Irish warship via dubious strategies.

The Irish Times reported the UN revelation as saying that the UN embargo on Libya was breached by a company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), about a year after the decommissioned vessel was sold by Ireland to a Dutch shipping broker.

"Ireland sold the offshore patrol vessel for €110,000 to the Dutch company. The Dutch company sold it a year later, for $525,000 (€473,000), to the company in the UAE, which almost immediately sold it to a company in Libya for $1.5 million (€1.3 million)." The report says.

The details of what happened to the former Irish naval vessel are set out in a report just filed by the Expert Panel on Libya to the UN Security Council, according to the Irish Times.

A spokeswoman for the Irish Department of Defence said it had no “trailing obligations” in relation to the vessel, and that the resale of the ship was a matter for its purchaser, adding that the ship was decommissioned with all of its weaponry, defensive equipment and specialist naval equipment removed before it was put up for public auction and bought by a Dutch shipbroker.

According to the UN report, the ship is now called the Al Karama (Dignity), has been refitted with cannons such as the ones it had when it was owned by the Irish naval service.

The media office of Haftar's forces posted in May 2018 a video on YouTube showing the ship, saying it was a Libyan warship that had been retrieved after being overseas for seven years. It added that it was named "Khafirat Al-Karama" to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the launching of Dignity Operation (Karama Operation).