Pagina dettaglio corso numero uno

by Gregorio Valducci, PhD student at the University of Milan

In recent weeks, there has been considerable discussion surrounding the case of Njeem Osama Elmasry – also known as Almasri – head of the Libyan judicial police, who is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. He is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity – including murder, torture, rape, persecution, and inhumane detention – allegedly perpetrated from February 2015 onwards within Mitiga prison. This prison has been the focus of multiple independent investigations and a recent UN report identifying it as a site of systematic human rights violations. In addition to overseeing the prison’s security, Almasri is a key official in the well-known Tripoli militia RADA, which was initially established to combat organized crime, but has been accused of severe violence in handling migration flows.

I will not delve into the already well-known aspects of this case: Almasri’s arrest, his subsequent release, and return to Libya; nor the investigation into Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other government officials following these events. Beyond the judicial dimension, it is quite evident that Almasri’s release was dictated by political considerations driven by strategic, economic, and diplomatic interests.

Instead, I believe it is crucial to reflect on why such a political decision might be deemed socially acceptable, not just from a political-diplomatic standpoint, but from a moral one. To this end, the Almasri case can be examined through the concept of the “ideal victim”, first formulated by criminologist Nils Christie in 1986.

An ideal victim is a person – or category of individuals – who, upon suffering a crime, can immediately and legitimately be recognized as a “victim”. The ideal victim is characterized by weakness, vulnerability and an absence of culpability. However, this figure is also endowed with a certain strength, albeit not necessarily in a physical sense, but rather in moral and political terms. Society – the broader community – is always ready to listen to the voice of the ideal victim, to amplify their narrative and demand for justice, thereby granting them legitimacy and authoritative power. This willingness stems from the fact that their voice resonates as familiar: the ideal victim is perceived as part of the in-group, someone like us, to the extent that “it could have been me in their place”.

However, the status of an ideal victim is not granted to everyone. It is usually reserved for specific categories of people while excluding others – who are real, flesh-and-blood victims but whose voices remain unheard. Some victimization stories simply do not reach our ears: the stories of the marginalized, the outsiders, the exceeding. Listening to their voices would require acknowledging and addressing the violence that still permeates society and is inflicted upon vulnerable groups. When individuals fall outside the narrow boundaries of ideal victimhood, they cannot aspire to this status. As a result, the violence they endure is normalized, and impunity for their perpetrators is quietly accepted.

This is precisely what has happened in the Almasri case. Despite the crimes he is accused of, he was able to return to Libya unpunished. This is because we refuse to recognize the voices of his real victims: the migrants who passed through Libyan prisons. These individuals cannot aspire to the status of ideal victims; in fact, they are often broadly labeled as perpetrators – whether potential or actual.

Addressing this issue requires societal introspection and effort to accommodate new narratives that include the stories of these non-ideal victims. This is a political endeavor – one that involves recognizing the forms of violence that society currently tolerates. It requires a willingness to embrace the Other and listen to their voice, thus dismantling the rigid construct of victim ideality and fostering a more open, democratic discourse. If we can succeed in this, then perhaps cases like that of Almasri will not happen again.