Military leader of Eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar (center), attends a conference in Sabha, Libya, September 5, 2024.
(Beirut) – The Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), which controls eastern and southern Libya, has executed at least 31 people since late August 2026 following grossly unfair military trials, Human Rights Watch said today. These are the first known executions in Libya since 2010, with at least 50 more people in Gernada military prison at imminent risk of execution.
On August 23, the LAAF military prosecutor announced that 10 people had been executed by firing squad after being convicted of murder and terrorism-related offenses. Human rights groups have documented a total of at least 31 executions as of September 10. The LAAF, led by General Khalifa Haftar, should immediately halt all executions and impose a moratorium on the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Libyan Arab Armed Forces are putting people to death after secret trials built on confessions allegedly extracted through torture, in courts that Libya’s own Supreme Court has said should not be trying civilians,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Every execution carried out under these conditions is an irreversible injustice and every government with influence over the LAAF should be pressing hard to stop the next one.”
Many of those executed had been arrested in the cities of Derna and Benghazi during or after the armed conflict between the LAAF and opposing armed groups between 2014 and 2018. Between 2018 and 2021, military courts in eastern Libya convicted hundreds of civilians in secret trials targeting real or perceived critics of the LAAF, sentencing at least 22 to death.
According to Amnesty International, many of the sentences were based on confessions allegedly extracted under torture by the Internal Security Ag
