Human Rights Watch: Gaddafi Forces Suspected Of Executing Detainees

A medical professional who inspected the 17 bodies that were transferred from the Internal Security building to Matiga Hospital said that about half of the entrance wounds were to the back of the head, and the rest were to the chest and face. He also noted recent abrasions and lacerations on the ankles and wrists suggesting that they had been cuffed. The hospital administrator introduced Al-Swayi to Human Rights Watch as a survivor from the same massacre from which they received the 17 corpses.

Under international humanitarian law, violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds of civilians and persons not engaged in combat such as detainees is always strictly prohibited and constitutes a war crime. This is irrespective of whether the conflict is an international or non-international conflict.

 

"If he is a civilian, still kill him"

In addition, near the Internal Security building, Human Rights Watch inspected 18 bodies in situ rotting in a dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya and interviewed five eyewitnesses.

 

In a suspected extra judicial execution by Gaddafi forces, Salah Saeed Kikli, 52, a medical laboratory engineer, told Human Rights Watch that he saw Gaddafi fighters in green military uniform kill two unarmed men, including one in medical scrubs, at a checkpoint by his home on August 24 around 11 a.m. after the fighters had previously approached him and threatened to kill him.

 

I was fixing my car. An African came to my corner [of the street] and asked if I was civilian or military. I said I live here. There was another [black man] behind who said, "if he is civilian, still kill him. No problem-- Five or ten minutes later" I saw them taking a doctor and another guy from an ambulance, and I saw them shoot [the two men]. The military guys stole the petrol from the ambulance" The ambulance said "February 17 Misrata" on it. [February 17 is a sign of support for the rebels.]"The men did not resist at all. They were medical people.

Another witness to the same incident, Juma' Al-Murayd, 31, told Human Rights Watch that two people with dark skin and in civilian clothes were driving the ambulance when they dumped three bodies next to his house on the dry riverbed between Bab al-Aziziya and Gargur. Human Rights Watch inspected the three bodies with Kikli, across from Al-Murayd's house, two of whom were wearing the green medical scrubs that doctors and nurses wear in Libya [3] . Kikli said that the third body, dressed in civilian clothes, was that of the driver.

Al-Murayd also said that separately he had witnessed other Gaddafi fighters kill three more civilians on August 23 at a checkpoint across the riverbed from his home, after having beaten them with the butt of a Kalashnikov. "One of them was just driving his car, unarmed," he told Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch inspected five bodies dumped in the riverbed near the spot Al-Murayd identified as the location of the checkpoint where the three men were executed. Human Rights Watch does not have evidence to date of how the other two were killed. All five bodies were dressed in civilian clothes.

In another incident in the same area, Siraj Salah Kikli, 18, told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed a policeman from Dam el-Merkezi kill two people and then spoke to a third who survived the shooting. He said that the policeman, whom he knew, was wearing civilian clothes and a military flak jacket. He and another man had forced the three victims to get out of their vehicle. "They didn't beat them," Siraj Kikli recalled, "they just shot them straight away." The bodies were removed from the site on August 25.

Adel Muhammad Abdulgader, 36, also said he witnessed Gaddafi forces kill two men in a vehicle stopped at a checkpoint, ostensibly because one of the men was wearing a rebel hat, which the forces took and burned. He said that the incident took place on August 22 or 23 at 7 a.m.

 

"These incidents, which may represent only a fraction of the total, raise grave questions about the conduct of Gaddafi forces in the past few days, and whether it was systematic or planned," said Whitson. "If these incidents are proven to be extra judicial killings they are serious war crimes and those responsible should be brought to justice."