Libya has announced its plans to consider enforcing the death penalty, to combat the rising crime rate and murders in the country.
The move has been initiated after years of freezing the death penalty, despite issuing death sentences for convicts in various political and criminal cases in the last decade.
The Libyan Attorney General, Al-Siddiq Al-Sour has formed a committee to study the matter and “give the green light to impose the death penalty, and implement fair retribution in some cases.”
The decision has sparked widespread reactions from human rights, and humanitarian organizations within and outside the country. The groups fear that the death penalty could be used outside the scope of the law, and mostly without trial, violating the right to life and fair trial standards.
Al-Sour emphasized the need to reform and rehabilitate institutions, and evaluate their readiness to meet the requirements for implementing the death penalty. He also stressed the importance of “taking responsibility for implementing judgments and taking initiatives to take action at times that do not conflict with the punitive policy.”
Officially, Libya has not witnessed any implementation of death sentences in the last 13 years, in terms of official judgments issued by the judicial system and the public prosecution. However, the country is considered one of the countries where extrajudicial executions are most prevalent, according to many local and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International.
In 2010, during the Gaddafi regime, the last legally sanctioned death sentences were carried out, when 18 people, most of whom were foreign nationals, were executed after being convicted of intentional murder. Amnesty International condemned the executions, stating that they were carried out following procedures that did not meet international standards for fair trials.
Although the death penalty has been suspended in Libya for years, the country’s Penal Code includes a provision for the death penalty in some cases, with all those sentenced to death to be executed by firing squad in accordance with the procedures prescribed by law. This legal provision has not been officially repealed so far.