[Reader-list] Amnesty International Details Torture and Murder in Libya

[A. Mani]

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29354

Amnesty International Details Torture and Murder in Libya

by Patrick Martin

	
Global Research, February 17, 2012


A report from Amnesty International details widespread torture in the
prisons and makeshift detention facilities in Libya, under the
auspices of the regime established by the US-NATO war that overthrew
and murdered Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In at least 12 cases, prisoners
were tortured to death, the group found.



The preliminary findings by Amnesty were reported late last month,
while the investigation was being conducted. Amnesty delegates
interviewed detainees and torture victims throughout January and early
February, with the detailed results released February 15.



The savage practices documented by Amnesty investigators include
beatings with whips, cables, metal chains and wooden sticks, electric
shocks, extraction of fingernails, and rape. Militia fighters
conducted these attacks brazenly, in some cases continuing to abuse
prisoners while human rights advocates were present.



According to the Amnesty report, the National Transitional Council,
installed by the imperialist powers, has not conducted a single
investigation into the torture and abuse of prisoners, and the
militias have uncontested authority to do as they please. No one has
been arrested or prosecuted for war crimes except those who were on
the losing side in the civil war, fighting for the ousted regime of
Gaddafi.



The report declares, “The failure of the authorities to even begin to
investigate with a view to bringing to justice former anti-Gaddafi
fighters responsible for war crimes during the conflict and human
rights abuses has perpetuated the climate of impunity for such
crimes.”



The report makes clear the political motivation for the violent
repression: “Militias took captive thousands of suspected al-Gaddafi
loyalists, soldiers and alleged foreign ‘mercenaries,’ many of whom
were tortured or ill-treated in custody, in some cases leading to
death. Scores of suspected al-Gaddafi loyalists were unlawfully killed
following capture, among them the ousted Libyan leader himself and one
of his sons. Militias also looted and burned homes and carried out
revenge attacks and other reprisals against alleged al-Gaddafi
supporters, forcibly displacing tens of thousands of people.”



Since the overthrow of Gaddafi, the militias continue to operate
without any restraint, seizing people and holding them in secret
detention centers, “without trial or any means to challenge the
legality of their detention.” Detainees were not given access to
lawyers and in most cases the “judicial” authority was actually the
prosecution.



Amnesty delegates interviewed scores of torture victims who had been
imprisoned in Tripoli, Benghazi, al-Zawiya, Gharyan, Misrata and
Sirte, as well as families of those who died in custody after being
tortured. Visible wounds and injuries, as well as medical reports,
confirmed the testimony about torture. In many cases, victims were too
afraid to tell their stories even when they showed their wounds.



Some 2,400 detainees are acknowledged at prisons controlled by the
NTC, but many thousands more are held by the official Libyan military
and by police and militia units operating entirely outside of any
legal structure. Arrests continue unabated, despite a series of
reports since the beginning of this year by Doctors Without Borders,
Human Rights Watch and now Amnesty.



This well-documented brutality and murder is grounds for indicting on
war crimes charges, not only the NTC leaders, but their imperialist
masters—President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the rest of the NATO gangsters who
bombed Libya mercilessly for eight months and armed and organized the
“rebel” forces under the leadership of mercenaries and agents of the
right-wing oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf.



It also exposes the criminal character of the support for the US-NATO
intervention in Libya by middle-class “left” organizations in the
United States and Europe, who enthusiastically embraced the “human
rights” pretext offered by the Obama administration and its NATO
partners.



These political charlatans claimed that only an intervention by the
Western powers could prevent an imminent bloodbath in Benghazi. They
glossed over the real motive for the war: Libya’s vast oil wealth, now
being handed over to the major oil companies. And they are now silent
over the mounting toll of death, torture and wrongful imprisonment
being meted out by the regime established by the imperialist
“liberators.”



The chapter headings in the Amnesty report suggest the scope of the
repression: Detentions Outside Legal Framework; Torture and Other
Ill-Treatment; Deaths in Custody; Revenge Attacks and Forcible
Displacement; Continuing Scourge of Impunity.



The bulk of the report consists of grisly eyewitness testimony from
torture victims, who are given letter designations rather than named,
in order to protect them against likely retaliation from the militias.
A few examples suffice:



A 29-year-old former soldier:



“… they forced me to lie on my back on a bed and my hands and legs
were tied to the frame. In this position I was beaten with fists on my
face. Then they beat me with a plastic hose on my feet. Later, I had
to turn around face-down and was tied again to the bed. In that
position, I was beaten again with a hose on my back and on the head. I
was also subjected to electric shocks to various parts of my body
including my left arm and chest. The instrument they used was a black
stick about 50cm long. My cousin was also subjected to electric
shocks.”



A 25-year-old computer programmer from a family identified as pro-Gaddafi:



“They started beating me on the way to the detention centre. They also
used swear words. At the detention centre I was suspended from the
iron bars of a gate and was beaten with a stick and a cable. This
lasted for some hours. Afterwards I was taken to another room for
interrogation where they gave me electric shocks. They tied my legs
while I was lying on the floor on my back. Two live wires were
connected to the toes of my feet. I believe they used the electric
current from the socket. They gave me electric shocks six or seven
times. Then I was taken to a separate room where I stayed for three
days.”



A 26-year-old cigarette seller, detained in Sirte, Gaddafi’s home
town, and then taken to Misrata for interrogation:



“One person took a glass bottle and hit my head. Then they forced me
to sit on the floor and tied my hands to the back. They kicked my
head. They beat me all over my body with a hose, with a wooden stick
and with a cable used for cars. They wanted information about people I
do not know.”



A 26-year-old solder from Tawargha, a town near Misrata largely
populated by black Libyans, which became a target for revenge killings
by Misratan militia forces. The entire population has fled the town
and is not permitted to return:



“There were about five men in civilian clothes in the office. I was
insulted for being from Tawargha. I told them that I was based as a
soldier in Sirte and did not participate in the fighting in Misrata.
However, they did not believe me. They took turns beating and whipping
me. They also beat me on my right hand which is now swollen and on my
head. They suspended me from the top of the door by my wrists for
about an hour and kept beating me. They also kicked me. I still have
pain in my left side. They blindfolded me before they brought me back
to the cell.”



During a visit January 29 to the Wahda detention center in Misrata:



“Amnesty International observed three militia men beating and
threatening some detainees whose release had been ordered and who were
waiting in the courtyard to leave. One of the militia men kept kicking
and threatening to kill an older detainee who was cowering, squatting
against the wall, and crying. When the Amnesty International delegate
challenged him, he responded that ‘those Tawargha must not be released
or we’ll kill them’.”



Other groups specially targeted for brutality include members of the
Mshashiya and Qawalish tribes from the Nafusa Mountain area, as well
as immigrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa, who were
indiscriminately branded as Gaddafi “mercenaries,” although they for
the most part came to Libya to find employment.



At one prison visited by Amnesty, about 400 out of 900 detainees were
foreign nationals, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa. Many of them
described being tortured during their arrest and interrogation. Other
African immigrants described being beaten without actually being
detained, when they were trying to flee the fighting.



The report gives details on some of the 12 deaths by torture in
custody, men ranging in age from 26 to 62, including a factory worker,
a school director, a former policemen, a former army colonel and a
former Libyan ambassador to France. Other killings include a violent
assault on a protest by displaced Tawargha refugees, in which several
children were among the half dozen victims.



There are also cases of extrajudicial execution, besides the murder of
Gaddafi and his son Mu’tassim when they were captured outside Sirte
October 20. Three days after that, the bodies of 65 men were found in
and around the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, which had been the base of
operations for NTC fighters attacking the city. Some of these bodies
had their hands tied behind their backs and many had been shot in the
head. There has been no investigation of this apparent mass execution.

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A. Mani





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