ROME (AP) — Human rights groups voiced outrage Wednesday after Italy released a Libyan warlord on a technicality, after he was arrested on a warrant from the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Hague-based court, for its part, issued a more diplomatic response but its anger appeared evident. In a stern statement late Wednesday, the ICC reminded Italy that it is obliged to “cooperate fully” with its prosecutions and said it was still awaiting information about what exactly Rome had done.
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FILE - View of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio puts his hand to his head during the presentation of the report on the justice administration, at the Senate, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
The reaction came after the Italian government on Tuesday released and sent back home Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, who heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force.
Al-Masri had been arrested Sunday in Turin, where he reportedly had attended the Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before. The ICC warrant, dated the day before, accused al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Mitiga prison in Libya starting in 2015 that are punishable with life in prison.
The ICC said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. It said the warrant was transmitted to member states on Saturday, including Italy, and that the court had also provided real-time information that he had entered Europe.
The court said it had reminded Italy at the time to contact it “without delay” if it ran into any problems cooperating with the warrant.
But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed Tuesday, and he was sent back to Libya aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services, because of what the appeals court said was a procedural error in his arrest. The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time, since the justice ministry handles all relations with the ICC.
The ICC said it had not been given prior notice of the Rome court's decision, as required, and “is seeking, and is yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken.”
Al-Masri returned to Tripoli late Tuesday, received at the Mitiga airport by supporters who celebrated his release, according to local media. Footage circulated online showed dozens of young men chanting and carrying what appeared to be al-Masri on their shoulders.
“This is a stunning blow to victims, survivors and international justice and a missed opportunity to break the cycle of impunity in Libya,” said Amnesty International’s Esther Major, deputy director of research for Europe.
Nordio appeared in the Senate on Wednesday for a previously-scheduled briefing, and was grilled by outraged opposition lawmakers who demanded clarity about what happened. Former Premier Matteo Renzi accused the right-wing government of hypocrisy given its stated crackdown on human traffickers.
“But when a trafficker whom the International Criminal Court tells us is a dangerous criminal lands on your table, it’s not like you chase him down, you brought him home to Libya with a plane of the Italian secret services,” said Renzi of the Italia Viva party. “Either you’ve gone crazy or this is the image of a hypocritical, indecent government.”
The Democratic Party demanded Premier Giorgia Meloni respond specifically to parliament about the case, saying it raised “grave questions” given the known abuses in Libyan prisons for which al-Masri is accused. Nordio didn't respond.
Italy has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, on whom it relies to patrol its coasts and prevent waves of migrants from leaving. Any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.
Human rights groups have documented gross abuses in the Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept, and have accused Italy of being complicit in their mistreatment.
Two humanitarian groups, Mediterranea Saving Humans and Refugees in Libya, which have documented abuses committed against migrants in Libyan detention facilities, said they were incredulous that Italy let al-Masri go.
David Yambio, a 27-year-old from South Sudan who said he was abused by al-Masri while he was detained at the Mitiga prison in 2019-2020, said he felt betrayed by Italy. Yambio, who eventually escaped from the prison and arrived in Italy on a smuggler’s boat in 2022, said he had a “fleeting feeling of justice” when he heard that al-Masri had been arrested in Turin.
“Those who waited long before me, the Libyans who are victims of his criminal network, his war crimes, have been wanting for this day to come,” said Yambio, who received asylum and now lives in Modena and runs his Refugees in Libya advocacy group. “But when it came, it was immediately extinguished hours before it could even truly be felt in our hearts.”
But Tarik Lamloum, a Libyan activist working with the Belaady Organization for Human Rights which focuses on migrants in Libya, said Italy’s release of al-Masri was expected. He said his release shows the power of militias who control the flow of migrants to Europe through Libya’s shores.
“Tripoli militias are able to pressure (Italy) because they control the migrants file,” he told The Associated Press.
Militias in western Libya are part of the official state forces tasked with intercepting migrants at sea, including in the EU-trained coast guard. They also run state detention centers, where abuses of migrants are common.
As a result, militias — some of them led by warlords the U.N. has sanctioned for abuses — benefit from millions in funds the European Union gives to Libya to stop the migrant flow to Europe.
The European Commission spokesman reaffirmed all EU members had pledged to cooperate with the court.
“We respect the court’s impartiality and we are fully attached to international criminal justice to combat impunity," said EU commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni. In a 2023 summit, the EU leaders committed “to cooperate fully with the court, including rapid execution of any pending arrests,” he added.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Paolo Santalucia in Rome and Molly Quell in The Hague contributed.
FILE - View of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio puts his hand to his head during the presentation of the report on the justice administration, at the Senate, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
In the wooded outskirts of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a perplexed landlord noticed odd sights at two of his rental properties.
Tenants wore long black coats and parked box trucks outside the duplexes. They ran an electrical cord from one box truck into one of the condos, and kept a stretcher inside another.
A neighbor remembers similarly dressed figures walking around at night holding hands. They never spoke a word.
By the time the FBI searched the property last week, one of the most recent tenants had been killed in a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol agents in Vermont, and a second was under arrest. A third, a shadowy figure known online as “Ziz,” remains missing after authorities linked their cultlike group to six deaths in three states.
Officials have offered few details of the cross-country investigation, which broke open after the Jan. 20 shooting death of a Border Patrol trooper in Vermont during a traffic stop. Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent.
Their goals aren’t clear, but online writings span topics from radical veganism and gender identity to artificial intelligence.
At the middle of it all is “Ziz,” who appears to be the leader of the strange group, who called themselves “Zizians.” She has been seen near multiple crime scenes and has connections to various suspects.
She was even declared dead for a time, before reappearing amid more violence.
Jack LaSota moved to the San Francisco Bay area after earning a computer science degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013 and interning at NASA, according to a profile on a hiring site for programmers, coders and other freelance workers. NASA officials did not respond to a request to confirm LaSota's internship, but a Jack LaSota is listed on a website about past interns.
In 2016, she began publishing a dark and rambling blog under the name Ziz, describing her theory that the two hemispheres of the brain could hold separate values and genders and “often desire to kill each other.”
LaSota used she/her pronouns, and in her writings says she is a transgender woman. She railed against perceived enemies, including so-called rationalist groups, which operate mostly online and seek to understand human cognition through reason and knowledge. Some are concerned with the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
LaSota began promoting an extreme mix of rationalism, ethical veganism, anarchism and other value systems, said Jessica Taylor, an AI researcher who met LaSota both in person and online through the rationalist community and knew her as Ziz.
When LaSota left the rationalists behind, she took with her a group of “extremely vulnerable and isolated” followers, Anna Salamon, executive director of the Center for Applied Rationality, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor said Ziz adherents use the rationalist ideology as a reason to commit violence. “Stuff like, thinking it’s reasonable to avoid paying rent and defend oneself from being evicted,” she said.
Poulomi Saha, a professor who has studied cults, said LaSota’s beliefs and writings may have made readers feel seen, an often central factor in the formation of groups commonly labeled cults. That’s especially true in the era of online communities, in which it’s easier for marginalized people to seek fellow believers.
“For the person who feels hailed by that blog post, there is likely to be a kind of dual experience,” said Saha, co-director of the program in critical theory at the University of California, Berkeley. “One where they feel like ‘I have been saying this, or thinking this, all along, and no one has believed me.’”
LaSota, 34, has not responded to multiple Associated Press emails in recent weeks, and her attorney Daniel McGarrigle declined to comment when asked whether she is connected to any of the deaths. She has missed court appearances in two states, and bench warrants have been issued for her arrest. Associated Press reporters have left numerous phone and e-mail messages with LaSota's family and received no response.
In November 2019, LaSota was arrested along with several other people at a protest outside a Northern California retreat center where the Center for Applied Rationality was holding an event. Sheriff’s deputies called in a SWAT team and armored vehicle after the mask-wearing group blocked the property’s exits and handed out fliers railing against the rationalist organization. The group said they were protesting sexual misconduct inside the rationalist group.
The case against LaSota, Emma Borhanian, 31, Gwen Danielson and Alexander Leatham, 29, was pending in August 2022 when the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report that LaSota had fallen out of a boat in San Francisco Bay. Her body wasn’t found, but her mother confirmed the death and an obituary was published.
It wasn’t long before Ziz surfaced again.
By the autumn of 2022, LaSota had moved with other group members, including Borhanian and Leatham, into vans and box trucks on property owned by Curtis Lind in Vallejo, about 30 miles north of San Francisco.
“Emma’s van was amazing,” said someone who knew Borhanian. “It had a refrigerator and freezer and microwave. It was truly a work of art.”
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears for her safety, described Borhanian as a kind and loving young woman so smart that she worked at Google while in college. Google did not respond to an inquiry about Borhanian's employment there.
Prosecutors say she was among those who attacked Lind on Nov. 13 when he tried to evict the group for not paying rent.
Impaled by a sword and partially blinded, Lind fought back, fatally shooting Borhanian. Concluding that Lind acted in self-defense, officials charged Leatham and Suri Dao, 23, with murder in Borhanian’s death, as well as attempted murder of Lind.
A person reached by an Associated Press reporter at a phone number listed for Alex Leatham’s father declined to comment. Attempts to reach family members for Dao were not successful.
Police believe LaSota was at the scene of the crime, but she was not arrested.
On New Year’s Eve of 2022, a couple was shot and killed in their home in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.
A doorbell camera captured audio and video of a car pulling up to the home of Richard Zajko, 71, and his wife, Rita, 69. A voice shouts “Mom!” and another voice exclaims, “Oh my God! Oh, God, God!” according to a Pennsylvania state police affidavit. Police found the couple shot in the head in an upstairs bedroom after they failed to show up to take care of Rita’s mother.
Police questioned the couple’s daughter, Michelle, at her home in Vermont, and a few weeks later, took her into custody at a Pennsylvania hotel. She wasn't arrested or charged with anything. LaSota was at the hotel, too, and was arrested after refusing to cooperate with officers, and charged with obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct.
Six months later, LaSota was released on bail but stopped showing up for court.
LaSota’s attorney, Daniel McGarrigle, said last month his client was “wholly and unequivocally innocent of the charges filed in this case.”
Meanwhile, the case regarding the landlord in California was headed to trial. The landlord, who was 82, was the only eyewitness, and prosecutors wanted to hurry along the proceedings.
But on Jan. 17, Lind’s throat was cut, and he died, not far from where he had survived the earlier attack.
Maximilian Snyder, 22, who is charged with murder, appeared in court Feb. 6, only long enough to request a new attorney. It's not clear how he was identified as a suspect; he has ties to a woman who just days later would be involved in a shootout.
Snyder is listed as in custody in the Solano County Jail in California. Attempts to reach family members of Snyder were not successful.
On. Jan 20, in Vermont, U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped a vehicle carrying two people connected to the Ziz group. A hotel worker had called authorities after seeing one of them, Teresa Youngblut, with a gun.
Youngblut was driving the car when it was pulled over on Jan. 20, and authorities say she quickly opened fire on officers. The passenger, Felix Bauckholt, a German national who is also listed in court documents as Ophelia, died, along with the border patrol agent, David Maland.
Youngblut was wounded and arrested and has pleaded not guilty to firearms charges.
Authorities who searched the car found a ballistic helmet, night-vision goggles, respirators and ammunition, the FBI said. They also found two-way radios and used shooting range targets.
Youngblut applied for a marriage license with Snyder, the man accused of murdering the elderly landlord. He was a childhood friend; it was unclear if they were married. Authorities say the gun she was carrying was purchased by a person of interest in the Zajko killings.
Youngblut and Bauckholt had been living at the two condos in North Carolina, where the landlord and neighbors now say they saw the odd behavior.
LaSota also had been living there as recently as this winter, said the landlord, who reviewed LaSota’s 2019 police booking photo. He spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he was concerned for his safety.
Expressing similar concerns, a neighbor who lived in the other side of Bauckholt’s duplex until September 2023 recalled seeing three people wearing long black robes and tactical clothes.
“They rarely came out during the day but would walk around the neighborhood and in the woods at night,” the former neighbor said, who also spoke only on condition of anonymity because of concerns for their safety. “Sometimes all three of them would go for a walk and they all held hands. They seemed to care for each other a great deal.”
Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack, Lisa Baumann, Janie Har, Maryclaire Dale and Gary Robertson contributed to this report.
Maximilian Snyder appears in court for arraignment on Thursday in Fairfield, Calif. Snyder is charged with allegedly killing an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against his former tenants. Snyder asked for additional weeks to find proper counsel, moving the case back to Vallejo. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)/The Times-Herald via AP)
Maximilian Snyder, who is charged with allegedly killing an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against his former tenants, walks into court with his hands up for arraignment Thursday, Feb 6, 2025, in Fairfield, Calf. (Chris Riley, Times-Herald via AP)/The Times-Herald via AP)
Maximilian Snyder, who is charged with allegedly killing an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against his former tenants, walks into court for arraignment Thursday, Feb 6, 2025, in Fairfield, Calf. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)
Flowers sit outside the property where San Francisco Bay Area prosecutors say Maximilian Snyder killed landlord Curtis Lind in Vallejo, California, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Janie Har)
Flowers sit outside the property where San Francisco Bay Area prosecutors say Maximilian Snyder killed landlord Curtis Lind in Vallejo, California, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Janie Har)
FBI agents search a neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025 where Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, who were involved in the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont, had been renting homes in the neighborhood, their landlord told The Associated Press. (WRAL-TV via AP)
FBI agents search a neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025., where Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, who were involved in the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont, had been renting homes, their landlord told The Associated Press. (WRAL-TV via AP)
FBI agents search a neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, where Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, who were involved in the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont, had been renting homes in the neighborhood, their landlord told The Associated Press. (WRAL-TV via AP)
In this Jan., 2023 booking photo provided by the Delaware County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney's Office, Jack LaSota refused to speak and kept her eyes closed while being photographed after being detained in a hotel in suburban Pennsylvania on Jan. 23, 2023. (Delaware County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney's Office via AP)
In this combination of undated photos provided by the Pennsylvania State Police, Richard Zajko, left, and his wife Rita Zajko, who police say were shot to death in their home in suburban Philadelphia on Dec. 31, 2022, are shown. (Pennsylvania State Police via AP)
FILE - This Jan. 29, 2025 photo shows a Chester Heights, Pa., home, the scene of the 2022 killing of Richard and Rita Zajko, (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
FILE - Law enforcement follow a hearse carrying fallen border patrol agent David Maland from the UVM Medical Center morgue to a funeral home in Burlington, Vt., Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (WCAX via AP, File)
FILE - In this undated and unknown location photo released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Border Patrol Agent David Maland posing with a service dog. (Department of Homeland Security via AP, File)
FILE- Cars are backed up at the US-Canada border in Stanstead, Quebec, after a shooting involving a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Coventry, Vt., on Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Chloe Jones, File)
FILE - This image taken from video provided by WCAX shows police cars closing off a road after a shooting involving a U.S. Border Patrol agent on Interstate 91 near Coventry, Vt., on Jan. 20, 2025. (WCAX via AP, File)