Public Prosecutor to investigate alleged Saadi Qaddafi torture video

By Libya Herald reporter.

Tunis, 4 August 2015:           

The Libyan Public Prosecutor’s Office has announced that it has launched an investigation into the video that has emerged on social networks purporting to show prisoners at the Al Hadba prison being tortured by prison guards.

The video included scenes of Saadi Qaddafi being beaten and slapped. The video has been condemned by Human Rights Watch who had asked for Libyan authorities to investigate the video allegations.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that it has downloaded the video and is attempting to identify those on it for further investigation. It said that the all the necessary legal steps will be taken against those found complicit.

It will be recalled that the alleged crimes took part in the Al-Hadba political prison where, with the exception of Saif-al-Islam Qaddafi who is held in the city of Zintan, all the leading former Qaddafi regime prisoners are held.

The prison is under the control of the Islamist and former deputy defence Minister Khalid Sharif.

Sharif was surprisingly removed from his position as deputy Defence Minister in January by the Tripoli-based GNC-Libya Dawn administration of Omar Al-Hassi.

Sharif, a former commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Afghanistan who was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and sent back to Libya where Qaddafi jailed him, was given the post in Ali Zeidan’s government.

He retained the role when his boss as defence minister, Al-Thinni, became Prime Minister. After the latter’s internationally-recognised government moved to Beida in August, Sharif remained in the capital, working under the Tripoli-based “government” created by a group of members of the former parliament, the General National Congress, and headed by Omar Al-Hassi. [/restrict]