A $50 million damages lawsuit brought against Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA), in the U.S. is “moving very slowly”, said Esam Omeish, a Libyan-American politician, who helped lodge the legal action.
The lawsuit, filed two years ago in a Virginia federal court, alleges that Haftar, who holds U.S. citizenship, is guilty of war crimes during LNA military campaign in Benghazi between 2016 and 2017.
The plaintiffs sued Haftar under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which allows non-US citizens to seek compensation from individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, allegedly committed torture or extrajudicial killing.
However, the lawsuit has since be subject to multiple delays by U.S. court due to legal procedures, much to the dismay of Omeish, whose Libyan American Alliance organization supported the case.