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Feb 5, 2012

LIBYA TESTIMONY - TORTURING DETAINED BLACK PRISONERS

This is a story of detention and torturing of 5 Tawergha youths by Misurata militiamen, when one of them died after being subjected to the torture!

The date of their arrest was 31.12.2011. in seventh district, in Sirte. They got arrested by militiamen of "Battalion 1973" and then handed over to the security committee in Sirte.

They were detained for two days in Sirte, and on the third day 03.01.2012 , the officials from local security committee handed over the detainees to unknown persons, after a phone call between them. Those unidentified persons came to the place of detention, at the former military police station at the seventh district (Alsabaa area), with 4 cars and had transfered the detainees. Because the detainees were in the rear of a car, they could see that the destination was Misurata, where the detention continued up untill 16/01/2012 in area of Alkararem.
The story of a torture of the detainees from Tawergha, at the security committee headquarter in Sirte, where some people from security committee headquarter in Sirte had beaten, and insulted with shameful racist phrases the prisoner. The rights of the detainees were severely violated, they were being forced to drink FUEL in large quantities. Were they preparing them for burning!? Security forces took off their clothes completely and forced them to stand in freezing cold weather while beating them with metal cable and starving them for two days. 
After that, while they were transferred to Alkararem (Misurata), they were passing through Tawergha, their hometown, where the detainees saw the arson, destruction and the smoke coming out from a remote locations within the city.... After 20 minutes, detainees arrived to rebel´s headquarters near the former gate of Alkararem. The detainees have mentioned that they remember the dialogue which took place between the people who took them from Sirte and men who met them in front of headquarters near the gate, when they asked the militiamen not to make traffic on the gateway due to presence of the" national army " out there. That´s why they took subsidiary road to a place near the hospital of Alkararem and stopping in front of one building, where one of the detainees said that he saw a lot of blood on the walls, and signs of torture of other people, and could feel the smell of death. 


"Then the militiamen binded our legs and hands from behind, and held us in that position for four days. They contacted their friends and called other people to celebrate our detention, and actually that night eight drunk libyan people came to our detention place. They were pouring (alcohol) "vodka" on Abu Bakr (one of the detainees) and set fire on him, which led to burns and sores in different parts of his body. Then they started beating him with an iron chain and continued with their torture ceremony until the next morning."

Prisoners were detained for about 10 days, "each night which passed was as if ten thousand years have passed", said one of the detainees! The detainees mentioned that there were non libyan people in the detention as well, one Egyptian and the other is Moroccan, (where was a resident of Tawergha?).
They were beatening us with truncheon - like Baseball bat, in addition to the metal cable and hitting us with pistol handgrip, and due to this atrocities a young man DIED under the torture, his name is : Muhammad Al Fitouri Zayed. They buried his body somewhere in Alkarareem, said Abu bakr. Then a person named (Salah Abu Hleeqa) arrived, a commander of the Battalion of Alzawia martyrs, he was looking for us for a while, with the Red Cross, in the prisons of Misratah but he couldn't find us until being led by someone to the place of our detention. 

After he arrived to the detention, he has found only 4 of the 5 detainees, and therefore asked Salah Abuhleeqa the militiamen about the fifth person but unfortunately they told him that after the investigation, he "has admitted a rape" and was transferred to a prison in Misratah, but in fact, he died after being subjected to the torture. 

Abu Hleeqa has took the names of the detainees, as they were members of Alzawia Martyrs battalion. After two days he sent them a car which transferred them to  hospital in Sirte and remained there for two days but due to lack of the equipment at the hospital and fearing for the lives of detainees they were taken to the city of Benghazi on 19.01.2012.

The detainees mentioned some of the names of the militiamen who have been torturing them in SIRTE :
1 - Mohammed Al Juhaimi
2 - Mohamed El-Siwi resident of the Ras Ammar, Misurata.
3 - Muhammad Al Mahishi.
4 - a person named Yassin, the rest of his name is unknown .
5 - Abdul-Hamid'Bet Almaal . "he was the Commander of the group"

And in Alkararem (Misurata) they did not know specific names of those who tortured them, but they could identify one Moroccan prisoner because he was a resident of Tawergha, he is the son of someone very-well known as (the Moroccan Saed) in Tawergha, he is a car electric technician on the coastal road.

And the names of detainees who were exposed to torture are:
1 -Mohammed Al Fitouri Zayed . (He died under torture)
2 - Rajab Abdullah Saleh.
3 -Abu Bakr Mohammed Al Shaibani.
4 - Abdel Moneim Muftah Al Fitouri.
5 -Mohammed Said Ramadan.
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Read also:

"Libya opens trial of 41 Kadhafi loyalists" [AFP]
http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2012/02/libya-opens-trial-of-41-kadhafi.html