"While many detainees have described their experiences of torture to us, some have proved too scared to speak - fearing harsher torture" by doing so. Instead, they just showed their wounds.
They came from being "suspended in contorted positions, beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars and wooden sticks, and given electric shocks with live wires and Taser-like electro-shock weapons."
Injuries AI saw confirmed detainee testimonies. So did medical reports. Suspected pro-Gaddafi loyalists and Black African foreign workers are affected. NTC authorities and armed militias are responsible.
Victims confess to stop pain. They have no legal representation. One Misrata detainee told AI:
"This morning they took me for interrogation upstairs. Five men in plain clothes took turns beating and whipping me....They suspended me from the top of the door by my wrists for about an hour and kept beating me. They also kicked me."
Another said he was beaten on wounds sustained weeks earlier and added:
"Yesterday they beat me with electric cables while my hands were cuffed behind my back and my feet were bound together. They threatened to send me back to the militia (that) captured me, who would kill me."
Others died from torture-inflicted injuries. Deep bruises and open wounds confirmed it.
Despite AI's requests for months, NTC authorities "failed to conduct effective investigations into cases of torture and suspicious deaths in custody."
Moreover, the "police and judiciary remain dysfunctional across the country." AI's Donatella Rovera said there's been "a complete failure on the part of those in power to take concrete steps to end torture and other ill-treatment of detainees and to hold those accountable responsible for such crimes."
On January 26, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) press release headlined, "Libya: Detainees Tortured and Denied Medical Care," saying:
MSF confirmed torture and abuse against Misrata detainees. They're also denied "urgent medical care." As a result, MSF suspended operations.
Since August 2011, they treated Misrata's war-wounded detainees. "Since then, (they observed) injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions." They treated 115 cases. They informed Misrata authorities. "Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centers were again tortured."
"Some officials (tried) to exploit and obstruct MSF's medical work," according to general director Christopher Stokes.
"Patients were brought to us in the middle of the interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."
Responsibility belongs to Libya's National Army Security Service. It conducts interrogations. They prevented MSF from treating detainees requiring "urgent and specialized" hospitalization care.
