900 bodies found in Libya mass graves

Thu Oct 6, 2011 7:15PM GMT

Reddit

Thirty-four bodies were exhumed by the International Committee of the Red Cross from a mass grave near the town of al-Qawalish in the Nafusa mountains in western Libya in September 2011.

Libyan interim government officials have discovered two mass graves that they say contain the remains of around 900 victims killed by forces of the former regime.

"Statements from witnesses led us to two graves of victims of the former regime," the Doha-based Al Jazeera television network quoted Nagui al-Essawi, a National Transitional Council military commander, as saying in the capital Tripoli on Thursday.

He added that the graves were discovered in Gargaresh, a coastal area located some seven kilometers (4 miles) from central Tripoli, and in Brasta Milad, a rural area near the capital.

Al-Essawi, however, did not say when the victims were believed to have been killed.

In late September, Libyan officials discovered a mass grave that contained the remains of more than 1,700 prisoners killed by Gaddafi forces in a 1996 massacre.

The remains of the executed detainees were unearthed at Tripoli's notorious Abu Salim prison.

The massacre occurred when inmates protested against the way they were treated. At the dawn of June 29, 1996, they were lined up in the courtyards of the prison.

Security forces of the former Gaddafi regime fired at the detainees with Kalashnikov rifles before using pistols at close range to finish the inmates off, according to accounts from survivors who talked to human rights groups.

The bodies were kept in prison before they were buried in 2000.

Acid had been poured on the corpses to eliminate any evidence of the massacre, the committee members said.

Gaddafi's dictatorial regime had for years concealed the truth but the horrors of the gruesome act came to international highlight when one of the prison guards spoke out and human rights groups launched probes.

The families of the victims had rejected the money that the Gaddafi regime had offered as compensation and insisted that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

The initial demonstrations that eventually led to the country's revolution kicked off in the eastern city of Benghazi in February when families of Abu Salim victims called for protests against the detention of their lawyer.

MP/JR