Egypt refuses to send Gaddafi chief to the ICC

Egypt will not hand over a Libyan ex-military intelligence chief to the International Criminal Court (ICC), because its membership has not been ratified by parliament, a senior source told The New Arab.

The ICC in The Hague re-issued an arrest warrant against al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled on Monday on charges of war crimes and the suppression of political activists in 2011.

Egypt is not under any legal obligation to extradite Tuhamy, rather a moral duty, said the anonymous source at the ICC in Africa.

Tuhamy is wanted for his role in the war crimes committed during the crushing of popular protests against the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.

A warrant for his arrest was initially issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2013.

Tuhamy was reportedly arrested in Cairo in April 2012, but was subsequently released. He is believed to have a large number of different passports under a number of different names.

Egypt has a long history of quibbles with the ICC related to its repeated refusals to ratify its membership or to comply with multiple arrest warrants.

In April 2011, Egypt's Foreign Minister, Nabil al-Araby, declared his intention to join the ICC but this plan was never actualised.

This was possibly related to a Bilateral Immunity Agreement between Egypt and Sudan which allowed Sudanese politicians, wanted under international arrest warrants, to come to Egypt.

The Sudanese minister, Ahmed Haroun, who was wanted on war crimes charges over his role in the genocide in Darfur, flouted an ICC warrant in 2006 by making a visit to Cairo without arrest.