GADAFY LOYALISTS conducted bloody reprisals against the local civilian population in the chaotic final hours of the war, according to Dr Adnan Marwan, a medic at a medical clinic in Tripoli. There are several massacre sites across Tripoli, but bringing the perpetrators to justice seems an almost impossible task.
Many people were executed last Sunday or Monday as the rebels advanced into the capital and an uprising began inside it. Gadafy loyalists shot 17 detainees held in an internal security building in the Gargur area. The victims were killed minutes before they would have been freed.
One survivor, Osama al-Swayi, told Human Rights Watch that 25 people had been held inside the prison. He said he heard the rebels shouting and expected to be released; his captors, however, ordered him and the others out of their cells and told them to lie on the floor. “I saw three dark men. One soldier gave the order: ‘Just finish them off’.”
Another 18 bodies were found rotting in a dry river bed between Gargur and Gadafy’s Bab al- Aziziya compound – further evidence of apparent war crimes.
“The evidence we have been able to gather so far strongly suggests that Gadafy government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s North Africa director, said.
In a related issue, hundreds of pro-Gadafy fighters, including boys as young as 14 and men from African countries including Mali and Mauritania, are being held in a makeshift prison in a Tripoli suburb, presenting another headache for Libya’s new rulers. There are currently no courts, and no post-Gadafy justice system.
The prisoners, being held in a school in Tajura, are accused of fighting for Muammar Gadafy. As the battle engulfed the suburb last week, nine miles from the centre of Tripoli along the coast, they opened fire on rebel positions from prominent seaside buildings.
“We’d been promised 700 dinars [€403]. But our commander took the money, hid his family and escaped,” Ibrahim Bahsir, from Misurata, recalled.
The majority of prisoners - accommodated in a spacious single room and wearing striped hospital pyjamas - denied they had anything to do with Gadafy.
“I didn’t do any fighting,” Hamadi Ibrahim from Mauritania insisted. Nasar Bashir said he had been arrested after his brother- in-law tipped off the rebels. “True, I once worked for Gadafy’s security agency. But I hated him. I resigned 15 years ago.”
Some of those in Tajura prison are still at school. They only joined Gadafy’s army in their summer holiday after TV adverts appealed for patriotic volunteers.A teenage fighter, Ramzi al-Sifal, said he enlisted in June after being promised 300 dinars.
Conditions in the temporary prison appeared good. There were toilets and washing facilities; a medical clinic across the road patched up the worst cases. – (Guardian service)