Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the ICC is considering an investigation into human trafficking and other alleged crimes against migrants in Libya.

Bensouda, speaking during a UNSC meeting on Monday, said her office continues to gather and analyze “serious and widespread crimes” against migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa, along the route to the Mediterranean through Libya.

“I’m similarly dismayed by credible accounts that Libya has become a marketplace for the trafficking of human beings,” Bensouda said, adding that her office “is carefully examining the feasibility” of an investigation.

Bensouda also discussed the case of Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled, the former head of the Libyan Internal Security Agency under Muammar Gaddafi, who is believed responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The ICC pre-trial chamber determined there are reasonable grounds to believe that under his leadership, security forces routinely arrested and detained Gaddafi’s political opponents under severe and inhumane conditions.

Bensouda urged Libyan leaders across the political spectrum to take immediate action to verify the suspect’s whereabouts and facilitate his arrest and surrender.

In February, the United Nations issued a report on the trials of 37 former members of the Gaddafi regime, and called again for Libyan authorities to surrender Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The security council referred the situation in Libya to the ICC in February 2011, and the court issued arrest warrants for crimes against humanity later that year. They included one for Gaddafi himself, which was withdrawn following his death.

Image: United Nations