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    Who Has the ICC Charged With War Crimes?

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    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has joined a short list of sitting leaders charged by the International Criminal Court.The warrant announced against him on Thursday puts Mr. Netanyahu in the same category as Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. As part of their membership in the court, countries are required to arrest people for whom it has issued warrants, though that obligation has not always been observed.Here is a closer look at some of the leaders for whom warrants have been issued by the court since its creation more than two decades ago.Vladimir Putin of RussiaPresident Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, with Maria Lvova-Belova, also subject to an I.C.C. arrest warrant, in a photo released by Russian state media.Pool photo by Mikhail MetzelThe court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin in March 2023 over crimes committed during Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including for the forcible deportation of children. A warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.Mr. Putin has since made several international trips, including to China, which is not a member of the court. His first state visit to an I.C.C. member since the warrant was issued was in September, to Mongolia, where he received a red-carpet welcome.Omar Hassan al-Bashir of SudanThe court issued warrants in 2009 and 2010 for Mr. al-Bashir, citing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the western region of Darfur.Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, on trial for corruption in Khartoum in 2019.Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/ReutersThe court has also charged several other Sudanese officials, including a former defense minister, Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, with crimes in Darfur.In 2015, Mr. al-Bashir traveled to an African Union summit in South Africa in defiance of the warrant, but was not arrested.Mr. al-Bashir, 80, was deposed in 2019 after three decades in power, and also faces charges in Sudan related to the 1989 coup that propelled him to power. He could receive the death sentence or life in prison on those charges if convicted.Muammar el-Qaddafi of LibyaCol. Muammar el-Qaddafi, then leader of Libya, was charged by the I.C.C. months before being killed by rebels. He is pictured here in Syria in 2008.Bryan Denton for The New York TimesThe court issued arrest warrants in 2011 for Libya’s then leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with one of his sons and his intelligence chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the first two weeks of the uprising in Libya that led to a NATO bombing campaign.Mr. Qaddafi was killed by rebels in Libya months later and never appeared before the court. His son remains at large.William Ruto of KenyaPresident William Ruto of Kenya, center, in Haiti this year. The court brought charges against him in 2011, and dropped them in 2016.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesThe court dropped a case in 2016 against William Ruto, then Kenya’s deputy president, who had been charged in 2011 with crimes against humanity and other offenses in connection with post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Ruto was elected president of Kenya in 2022.Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory CoastThe former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was also indicted by the court in 2011 over acts committed during violence after the country’s elections in 2010.Mr. Gbagbo and another leader in Ivory Coast, Charles Blé Goudé, were acquitted in 2021.Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, in Abidjan, the capital, last year.Sia Kambou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      A Tense Libya Delays Its Presidential Election

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      The postponement risks further destabilizing the oil-rich North African country, which has been mired in divisions and violence in the decade since Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled and killed in a revolution.Libya’s Parliament declared that it would be impossible to hold a long-awaited presidential election on Friday as scheduled, a delay that risked further destabilizing the oil-rich North African nation, which has been troubled by division and violence in the decade since the dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled and killed in a revolution.The announcement on Wednesday by the president of the parliamentary election committee, Hadi Al-Sagheer, confirmed what virtually everyone in Libya already knew. Nonetheless, it threatened to take political tensions to a boil from a simmer.“After reviewing the technical, judicial and security reports,” Mr. Al-Sagheer said in a statement, “we would like to inform you that it will be impossible to hold the elections on the date set by the elections law.” Western diplomats, along with many Libyans, had thrown their support behind this election, viewing it as a crucial step toward ending nearly a decade of civil conflict and reunifying a country still largely split in two. The election of a new president is regarded as the key to beginning the evictions of the armies of foreign fighters who were brought in over recent years to wage civil conflicts, to starting the consolidation of Libya’s multiple militias into a single national army, and to reuniting fractured government institutions.Libya was already on edge as the delay was announced on Wednesday morning. In the capital, Tripoli, on Tuesday, armed men and tanks had deployed on the streets and closed down the road to the presidential palace, sending residents scrambling to stock up on food and fueling fears of an imminent armed conflict. No violence had broken out by nightfall, but many feared the tenuous quiet would not last.For more than a year, Libya had been working toward the election on Dec. 24, which was to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the country’s independence. But it had become increasingly clear in recent weeks that the election could not go forward as planned because of disputes over the eligibility of the major candidates and over the electoral law. Electoral officials had already told election workers to go home on Tuesday night.The question now is not only when a vote might take place, but whether a postponed election would be any less brittle — and who would control Libya in the interim. While international mediators continued to try to find a new election date not long from now, Libyan politicians were already vying for control of a country that looked in danger of becoming rudderless with the added uncertainty surrounding the vote.The board of the High National Elections Commission has proposed Jan. 24 as a new election date.Local media reported earlier on Wednesday that the head of the High National Elections Commission, Emad al-Sayeh, said the board of the commission had stepped down after the failure to hold the election on schedule. But Ahmed Sharkasi, a member of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, the U.N.-convened body that set out the road map to the interim government and elections, later denied it.Nearly 100 candidates, including a few who are among the most prominent in Libyan politics, had declared they were running for president in Libya, which has a population of about seven million people. More than a third of Libyans are registered to vote, and more than two million of them had signaled their intentions to participate by picking up their voting cards. More