The brutal killing of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians held captive by a Libyan extremist group was a war crime for which those responsible must be held to account, the Human Rights Watch said in a statement released Tuesday.
HRW said Libyan authorities should take immediate steps to bring the perpetrators to justice, to the extent that this is currently possible, and the United Nations should establish a mechanism to investigate and prosecute such crimes.
The armed group holding the men has pledged allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS.) A video published on February 15 showed armed men beheading a group of 21 men, most or all of them Egyptian Copts working in Libya, on a beach thought to be close to the city of Sirte in western Libya. On February 16, Egypt said its air force had carried out air strikes in response to the killings, targeting Islamist militants in Derna, eastern Libya.
“ISIS is again horrifying the world by perpetrating war crimes, this time showing no mercy in Libya,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “But any military engagement with ISIS should take all possible steps to spare civilian lives.”
The UN should establish an international investigative mechanism, or appoint a special rapporteur, to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya, with view towards prosecution, Human Rights Watch said. The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor should examine this incident, together with other serious ongoing crimes in Libya, with a view to determining whether further investigations are warranted. The murder of civilians by members of a party to an armed conflict is a war crime.