Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told the Lower House on Wednesday that the International Criminal Court on January 18 issued an international arrest warrant against Libyan general Osama Almasri but the information about the warrant was delivered to Italian authorities by an Interpol official the following day informally, without including an extradition request.
Nordio was reporting to the House on the release of the Libyan police chief Almasri, the director of Tripoli's notorious Mitiga detention centre who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, torture, rape and sexual violence, allegedly committed in Libya from February 2015 onwards, who was flown back to Libya on a secret services flight two days after his January 19 arrest due to a controversial technical issue with his case.
"On January 18, the ICC issued an international arrest warrant against Almasri for a series of crimes.
"The arrest warrant was delivered on Sunday, January 19 at 9:30 am through an informal communication and the arrest delivered via email by an Interpol official at 12:37, also on Sunday: an absolutely informal communication, without significant data and without the measure in question and the reasons behind it.
The email, he added, "did not even include the extradition request".
Nordio also said he was alerted about Almasri's arrest after he had already been detained by police in Turin early on Sunday, January 19.
"On January 20, the prosecutor of Rome's appeals court delivered the complex papers" on Almasri's arrest to "the ministry of justice at 11:40.
"At 13:57 our ambassador to The Hague", where the International Criminal Court is based, "delivered to the ministry the request for the provisional arrest.
"The communication from the central police department to the ministry occurred when the arrest had already been carried out", said Nordio.
Nordio also said there had been "errors" in the ICC warrant, calling it "null and void" because it was hard to understand due to being in English and Arabic, and accused the Hague court of perpetrating "a hasty mess" in its issuance of the warrant.
He also accused some Italian magistrates of being "sloppy" in their evaluation of the case, and allegedly issuing judgements without having read the documents.
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