Gaddafi troops 'linked to killings'

Retreating loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi killed scores of detainees and arbitrarily shot civilians over the past week, as rebel forces extended their control over the Libyan capital, survivors and a human rights group said.

In one case, Gaddafi fighters opened fire and hurled grenades at more than 120 civilians huddling in a hangar used as a makeshift lockup near a military base, said Mabrouk Abdullah, 45, who escaped with a bullet wound in his side.

Some 50 charred corpses were still scattered across the hangar yesterday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said yesterday that the evidence it has collected so far “strongly suggests that Gaddafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling”.

The justice minister in the rebels’ interim government, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the allegations would be investigated and leaders of Gaddafi’s military units put on trial.

So far, there have been no specific allegations of atrocities carried out by rebel fighters, though human rights groups are continuing to investigate some unsolved cases.

AP reporters have witnessed several episodes of rebels mistreating detainees or sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being hired Gaddafi guns.

Earlier this week, rebels and their supporters did not help eight wounded men, presumably Gaddafi fighters, who were stranded in a bombed out fire station in Tripoli’s Abu Salim neighbourhood, some pleading for water.

Najib Barakat, the health minister in the rebels’ interim government, said that he does not yet have a death toll for the weeklong battle for Tripoli.

Hundreds have died and more bodies, some in advanced stages of decay, are still being retrieved from the streets.

Mr Barakat said efforts are being made to identify bodies. At the least, the corpses of suspected Gaddafi fighters, especially non-Libyans, are being photographed before burial, to allow for possible future identification by relatives.

In fighting late yesterday, pro-Gaddafi elements fired Grad rockets at rebel forces gathering in the town of Nawfaliyah, not far from Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, rebels said.

Rebels gave residents there 10 days to allow rebel forces in peacefully or face an assault. A rebel spokesman said many Gaddafi loyalists have fled to Sirte and are preparing for a fierce battle.

Rebels rode into Tripoli a week ago, then fought fierce battles with Gaddafi forces, especially at the former Libyan leader’s Bab al-Aziziya compound and the Abu Salim neighbourhood, a regime stronghold.

As the rebels consolidated their control and Gaddafi fighters fled, reports of atrocities began emerging over the weekend.

Human Rights Watch said it has evidence indicating regime troops killed at least 17 detainees in an improvised lockup, a building of Libya’s internal security service, in the Gargur neighbourhood of Tripoli.

A doctor who examined the corpses said about half had been shot in the back of the head and that abrasions on ankles and wrists suggested they had been bound.

The group spoke to Osama Al-Swayi who had been detained there, along with 24 others.

On August 21, detainees heard rebels advancing and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is great” he told Human Rights Watch.

“We were so happy, and we knew we would be released soon,” he said. “Snipers were upstairs; then they came downstairs and started shooting. An old man (and another person) were shot outside our door. (The rest of us) ran out because they opened the door and said, ’Quickly, quickly, go out’.”

He said the soldiers told them to lie on the ground. He said he heard one soldier saying, “Just finish them off”. Four soldiers fired at the detainees.

“I was near the corner and got hit in the right hand, the right foot and the right shoulder. In one instant, they finished off all the people with me. ... No one was breathing. Some of them had head wounds,” he told the rights group.