20110326
reuters

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Individuals accused of bombing and shooting anti-government protesters in Libya will end up on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) sooner or later, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes said.

Almost a month after the United Nations Security Council unanimously referred Libya to the ICC, Western powers are enforcing a no-fly zone over the country to protect civilians under attack from troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

"Do I see that there will come a day when individuals responsible for this kind of conduct are in the ICC? Yes, it is not a question of if, it's a question of when," Stephen Rapp, the former chief prosecutor at the U.N.-backed Sierra Leone court, told Reuters on Friday.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has said Gaddafi, his sons and key aides could be prosecuted for the violence, said on Thursday he may seek arrest warrants by the end of May.

"We would have to see what the situation was at that time, but I would expect in this case very strong support for ensuring those arrest warrants were executed," Rapp said.

Although some analysts warn the West risks becoming caught up in a drawn-out civil war in Libya, Rapp pointed to the arrests of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and former Liberian President Charles Taylor to prove arrests can be made.

Both leaders were later placed on trial in The Hague.

Confronted by ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted Milosevic in May 1999 while a NATO bombing campaign was in full swing.