THE HAGUE — Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, a former Libyan militia commander accused of overseeing murder, rape, enslavement and torture in detention centers, will appear at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Tuesday for a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. The case is the first to reach a courtroom from the ICC's investigation into crimes in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

El Hishri, a senior officer in the Special Deterrence Force, is accused of imposing a brutal regime at the Mitiga prison in Tripoli between February 2014 and at least mid-2020. He faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including personally torturing, mistreating, sexually abusing and killing detainees, and imposing prison conditions aimed at increasing detainees' suffering.

At a December hearing, prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe that El Hishri personally killed one detainee, and that a number of people died during his time at the prison either from torture, being left outside in winter, untreated injuries or starvation. It is alleged that detainees were shot, confined in small metal boxes and beaten with cables sometimes for the entertainment and amusement of guards. Thousands of detainees were held in Mitiga in overcrowded, unhygienic cells and were systematically subjected to violent assaults, Human Rights Watch said.

El Hishri was arrested in Germany last year when, it is thought, he sought medical treatment for a family member. Defense lawyers are expected to challenge the jurisdiction of the ICC and have called for his release.

"It is a really important development," said Allison West, senior legal adviser at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. "The is the first case in the [ICC's] Libya investigation that has been ongoing for more than 15 years. It's the first time we have got someone into custody."

David Yambio, a former detainee at Mitiga prison, called for an end to European programs that support the Libyan militias. "Now [Hishri] is in front of the court, it sends a strong message to perpetrators wherever they are that they will be brought to account and justice will be delivered, even if it takes a long time," he said. "The EU is complicit in these crimes," Yambio said.

The Special Deterrence Force is allied to the internationally recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli and is nominally under the interior ministry. One of El Hishri's alleged co-perpetrators at Mitiga prison was arrested in Italy in February last year but was released on a technicality and returned to Libya. Eight ICC arrest warrants are still pending in connection with the violence in Libya that followed Gaddafi's fall.