World
Italy claims ICC mishandled Libyan warlord's arrest warrant
Carlo Nordio argued that the ICC’s arrest warrant contained contradictions and procedural flaws, leading Italy’s courts to order Ossama al-Masri’s release.
Italy’s justice minister vigorously defended the government’s decision to repatriate a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), arguing on Wednesday that the court itself had made an “immense mess” of the case with an inconsistent and flawed arrest warrant.
Carlo Nordio told the lower house of the Italian parliament that he had acted cautiously regarding the 18 January warrant against Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, who is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Nordio said the Hague-based court had later “corrected, or rather completely overturned, the previous warrant” by amending the timeframe of al-Masri’s alleged offences.
“The court itself detected the errors and attempted to amend them five days later, because it realised that an immense mess was made,” Nordio told his colleagues.
The Italian government has faced sharp criticism from the ICC, human rights organisations, and opposition politicians for releasing al-Masri from detention on 21 January and deporting him to Libya on an Italian military aircraft.
Al-Masri was detained in Turin on 19 January, a day after arriving from Germany to watch a football match. He heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a network of detention centres controlled by the government-backed Special Defence Force.
The ICC warrant, published on the court’s website, accuses al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed at Mitiga prison in Libya from 2015 onwards, including murder, torture, rape, and sexual violence — offences that carry a life sentence.
However, the Italian government insists that Rome’s court of appeal ordered his release due to a technical issue in how the ICC warrant was transmitted, as it initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.
Nordio reiterated this argument, stating he had only received an “informal email of a few lines” from Interpol three hours after al-Masri’s arrest. He also pointed to contradictions in the original warrant, which initially stated the crimes occurred between 2015 and 2024, but in its conclusions, referred to offences committed from “2011 onwards”.
“An irreconcilable contradiction emerges regarding an essential element of the arrestee’s criminal conduct, regarding the time of the crime committed,” Nordio added.
However, when the ICC publicly unsealed the warrant on 24 January, it issued an amended version to “correct certain typographical and clerical errors”. The updated document confirmed the timeframe as 2015-2024.
Accusations of breaching ICC obligations
Human rights groups have condemned Italy’s decision to repatriate al-Masri, calling it a major violation of its responsibilities as a founding member of the ICC.
Under Article 89 of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court in 1998, signatories are obligated to comply with arrest and surrender requests.
Opposition lawmakers have seized on the controversy to criticise Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, demanding she personally address parliament on the matter. During Wednesday’s session, they held up placards reading: “Meloni, patriot at large”.
Italy has strong ties with Libya’s internationally recognised government, whose help it relies on to curb migration across the Mediterranean from the North African coast.
ADVERTISEMENTCritics have accused Meloni’s government of capitulating to pressure from Libyan militias, allegedly out of fears that had al-Masri been handed over to the ICC, they would retaliate by increasing the number of migrant boats sent towards Italy.
However, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who also addressed parliament on Wednesday, dismissed any suggestion that al-Masri had acted as a government intermediary on migration issues. He also denied that Italy had received threats in connection with his arrest.
Opposition leader Elly Schlein of the Democratic Party sharply criticised Nordio’s defence, arguing that his legal justifications for dismissing the ICC warrant were misplaced.
“Minister Nordio, you didn’t speak to this chamber as a minister, but as the defence lawyer of a torturer,” Schlein said.
ADVERTISEMENTNordio’s critique of the ICC aligns with the government’s broader attempt to shift focus onto the judiciary’s handling of the case. Last week, Rome’s chief prosecutor informed Meloni, Nordio, Piantedosi, and another senior official that they were under investigation for allegedly facilitating irregular migration by repatriating al-Masri.
Meloni has spent days denouncing what she describes as political interference from Italy’s judiciary and defending the government’s decision, framing it as a matter of national security.
“When the security of the nation and the interests of Italians are in play, there is no room for backing down,” she wrote on X on 29 January.
World
Britain drags feet on IRGC terror designation as Iran-linked center allegedly sells extremist merchandise
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is facing intense criticism over its failure to swiftly outlaw Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The development comes as a London-based Islamic center has been accused of selling merchandise supporting terrorism.
Potkin Azarmehr, a British-Iranian expert on Iran who has written extensively on Iran’s influence operations in the United Kingdom, told Fox News Digital the “Islamic Centre of England is a regime outpost.
“The head of the center is directly appointed by Iran’s supreme leader. The letter of the appointment is publicly read during the inauguration ceremony. There is not a shred of doubt that the center is used to peddle the influence of Iran’s political Islam. It is also used to recruit disgruntled British individuals who are sent to Iran for training.”
The Daily Telegraph reported in late January that U.K. authorities were investigating the Islamic Centre of England for allegedly selling Hezbollah phone cases and pro-Iranian regime key rings. Britain has sanctioned the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist movement, Hezbollah.
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A Google Maps photo showing the Islamic Centre of England in London. (Google Maps)
The pro-Hezbollah and pro–Islamic Republic goods were reportedly sold at a bazaar Dec. 14, 2025, according to the paper. One key ring displayed the words, “With the kindness of God, Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] is our leader.” The Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei, would order the murder of thousands of Iranian demonstrators just weeks later.
The bazaar also allegedly had stickers of late IRGC global terrorist Qassem Soleimani, who was responsible for the murders of over 600 military personnel, according to the Trump administration. President Trump ordered a drone strike in January 2020 that killed Soleimani in Iraq.
Emma Schubart, a research fellow at Britain’s Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital, “The Islamic Centre of England is not an isolated religious institution; it is part of a wider ecosystem of Iranian state-linked influence operating openly in the U.K., and at the center of that ecosystem sits the IRGC.
“The U.K. Government is dragging its feet over designating the IRGC. By delaying action, ministers are allowing hostile Iranian networks to continue operating under the cover of civil society and religious life. This is a dangerous blind spot in Britain’s national security.”
The Islamic Centre of England is a registered charity. When asked about reports of the Islamic Center’s role in selling pro-terrorist merchandise, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Charity Commission told Fox News Digital, “As part of our ongoing statutory inquiry into (the) Islamic Centre of England, we have raised concerns with the trustees about material sold by third parties at a recent event hosted at the charity’s premises. We take very seriously any alleged links between a charity and extremism or terrorism. Such links are abhorrent and corrosive to the trust on which the charitable sector depends.”
A British Union flag flies from a souvenir stall near the Houses of Parliament in London Oct. 27, 2025. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Azarmehr, however, countered, “The U.K. Charity Commission, the regulatory body, has been ‘investigating’ the center for five years with no decisions and no updates other than appointing an interim director, but the center carries on business as usual.
“The only tangible result is that every time you make a complaint to the charity about the center, they reply by saying that because they are investigating the center, they cannot comment.
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“The first head of the center, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, is now a member of Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts and a key figure in propagating Iran’s soft power abroad. Araki’s family have U.K. citizenship. The previous U.K. government, in which Alicia Kearns was part of its administration, even paid the center in excess of £100,000 in COVID-19 furlough.”
In this photo released Jan. 6, 2020, by the official website of the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fourth from left, leads a prayer over the coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his comrades who were killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone strike at the Tehran University campus, in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Kearns, who is the shadow minister for home affairs for the opposition Conservative party, is now demanding that the Islamic Center be shuttered.
“These latest revelations of terrorist tat being sold by the Islamic Centre of England are yet more evidence of why the center must be closed and those responsible for propagating terrorist propaganda face the law,” she told the Telegraph.
“The figures being idealized are responsible for the cold-blooded murder of tens of thousands of young Iranian protesters, adding to the many regional and international crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
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A spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of England told Fox News Digital, “The trustees take all concerns about the center very seriously. We are currently reviewing matters pertaining to the Dec. 14 event and, in light of this, are unable to comment further at this time.”
The EU announced last week that it has classified the IRGC a terrorist entity. The U.S., Canada and Australia have previously designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization. The IRGC played a key role in the massacre of Iranian demonstrators last month.
Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The proliferation of pro-Iran activism unfolded last weekend in London. Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party in the United Kingdom, posted on X, “When people in Britain are chanting support for the thuggish regime in Iran, we are in serious trouble as a nation.”
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Video footage embedded in Farage’s post and other clips on social media shows a mix of pro-Palestinian and pro-Iran regime messaging at the protests.
Multiple Fox News Digital inquiries to the British prime minister’s office went unanswered.
The head of Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe, told Euronews that European countries need to provide the budgetary resources and political will to ensure accountability for Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams chat from Super Bowl Radio Row in San Francisco.
They open by discussing a chaotic start to the week for the NFL. Commissioner Roger Goodell held his annual state of the league press conference Monday, and he answered a number of questions that no commissioner wants to address. Reporters asked about why no Black head coaches were hired in this recent cycle, how Goodell feels about halftime performer Bad Bunny’s political comments at the Grammy’s and how the league is reacting to New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch’s frequent communications with Jeffrey Epstein.
Next they share clips from a few radio row interviews. In the first, former Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander discusses significant changes in how NFL teams treat his former position. Running backs were once among the highest paid players on an NFL team. Now, they’re valued quite differently. A former NFL MVP, he speaks about his own experience, his contracts and injuries, and why he thinks running backs are currently undervalued.
In another clip, USA Football CEO Scott Hallenbeck talks about the sport-wide push for flag football. At the Super Bowl alone, there was a flag Pro Bowl, a celebrity flag game and an exhibition for the flag football that will be coming to the Summer Olympics in 2028. He discusses NFL players participating in LA28 and the way flag football has opened the sport to wider demographics.
(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
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