Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó turns to Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague in a letter, to immediately start an investigation of the execution of Egyptian Christians and to do everything to ensure the strictest possible prosecution of the perpetrators, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade communicated to MTI on Monday.

The Ministry was deeply shocked by the news of the brutal killing of the 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya. They expressed their deepest condolences to the relatives of the victims, to the Christian community in the Middle-East and to the Egyptian people.

"The barbaric act that is by no means justifiable not only contradicts the teachings of all religions but it is also irreconcilable with the most fundamental values of human civilisation", they wrote. They added that the world must not be a bystander of the barbaric attacks against the Christian community in the Middle East. Péter Szijjártó turned to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Monday. Based on an earlier decisions, the Court has continuously been investigating crimes against humanity committed from February 2011 onwards in Libya.

A video recording of the execution of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians was made public Sunday evening by the Libya branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The five minutes video shows the victims being led to the sea shore, brought to their knees and being beheaded "as the people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church".

The Libya branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced at the beginning of January that it had captured Egyptian Christians who had been working in the construction industry in Libya. Attacks committed against the members of the Coptic Christian community in the North African country are becoming more and more frequent.

Upon the news of the beheading, the government ordered a seven-day mourning period and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi summoned the meeting of the National Security Council.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)