On 20 April, the Attorney General’s Office reported that the Tripoli Criminal Court had convicted seven people involved in ‘an organisation engaged in activities that threatened the safety of the state and the national economy’. The seven members of an armed group were accused of seeking to replace the form of government and the country’s basic systems, preventing public authorities from carrying out their duties, sabotaging government headquarters, arbitrarily killing government workers, and forcing oil field workers to shut down production sites for a period of time. The Attorney General’s Office said these actions resulted in losses to the Libyan state amounting to USD 52.22 million.
Tripoli Criminal Court sentenced the first (A. S. J.), second (S. A. N.), third (A. S. Q.), fourth (A. H.), the fifth defendant (J. H.) and the sixth defendant (M.J.) to 18 years in prison. The seventh convict (S.M.) was sentenced to 15 years in prison. All the convicts were also permanently deprived of their civil rights. In response, former National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanallah said, ‘justice may be delayed but it is not absent’.