US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a “war criminal” who has been manipulating and lying to US voters, an American writer and political analyst says.

“I don’t think she should be in a US prison, she should be in the dark at The Hague [Netherlands] at the international war crimes tribunal,” Daniel Patrick Welch told Press TV on Friday.

“The real issue…is that she’s a war criminal,” Welch observed. She is responsible for the “destruction of an entire country [Libya] that she pushed and pushed for and then tried to sidestep,” he said.

Republicans have accused Clinton of letting chaos and terrorism spread across Libya because of her active support for the Libya intervention to overthrow former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Nearly five years after the overthrow of Gaddafi, Libya is still grappling with rising insecurity as the country has been witnessing numerous clashes between government forces and rival militia groups.

The former rebels refuse to lay down arms despite efforts by the central government to impose law and order.

Observers say the United States and its allies are responsible for completely destroying Libya, perhaps the richest country with a highest standard of living in Africa.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Welch said Clinton’s email scandal is nothing compared to the war crimes that she has been committing for the last 20 years.

The analyst said Clinton should be prosecuted for war crimes over her admission that she played a part in destroying Libya.

Clinton’s email scandal

Clinton has also come under fire for using a private email server while she was US secretary of state. Critics, including likely Republican presidential election rival Donald Trump, say she endangered government secrets and evaded transparency laws.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is likely to interview Clinton in the next few weeks about the private email account.

The FBI has already interviewed some of Clinton’s aides, including Huma Abedin, the vice chairwoman of Clinton's presidential campaign.

The nine-month FBI investigation into whether laws were broken as a result of the server kept in her New York state home has overshadowed Clinton's campaign.

More than 2,000 emails were sent and received by Clinton while working as the top US diplomat between 2009 and 2013 include classified information, which the government bans from being handled outside secure, government-controlled channels.

Welch said Clinton’s email scandal is legitimate and rejected her campaign’s accusations that she is the victim of a Republican conspiracy.

Clinton’s use of a private server was “reckless” and “shows the arrogance of power,” he said. “It’s really repulsive.”

The former Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner says it is very likely that Clinton will withdraw from the presidential race due to her email scandal and is replaced by US Vice President Joe Biden.

Addressing a conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Boehner said that Democrats should turn to Biden to be their 2016 nominee.

Boehner, who resigned from the US Congress last year, said he "would not be surprised at all" if Clinton "has to withdraw" and Biden "parachutes in."