On Monday, a Libyan court condemned 23 people to death and 14 others to life in prison for their roles in a murderous Islamic State militant campaign that included the beheading of a number of Egyptian Christians and the seizure of Sirte in 2015.
According to the Attorney General’s office, one other individual was sentenced to 12 years in jail, six to ten years, one to five years, and six to three years, while five others were acquitted and three others died before their case went to trial.
The Islamic State’s Libyan branch was one of the most powerful outside of its home area in Iraq and Syria, capitalizing on the instability and bloodshed that followed a NATO-backed rebellion in 2011.
It carried out an attack on the luxury Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli in 2015, murdering nine people before kidnapping and executing dozens of Egyptian Christians, whose killings were depicted in graphic propaganda films.
After seizing territory in eastern Libya’s Benghazi, Derna, and Ajdabiya, the organization conquered the key coastal city of Sirte, which it held until late 2016 while enforcing a severe regime of public morals backed up by violent punishments.
Mustafa Salem Trabulsi, the head of an organization for bereaved families of persons slain or disappeared by the gang, said he had hoped that all of the suspects would be sentenced to death, but he accepted the verdict.
“My son has gone missing, and my relative, my brother-in-law, was murdered in Sirte Square”, he added.
Fawzia Arhuma, who spoke in court on Monday, said she welcomed the death sentences after her son was slain by the gang at a power station outside Sirte.
She further said, “My son raised my head today”.
“I buried my son today”, she added.
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