 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| Libya frees 88 Islamists |
|
|
|
Friday, October 16, 2009
TRIPOLI: Libya on Thursday freed 88 Islamists and announced it will demolish Abu Slim prison, notorious for what human rights groups say was a 1996 massacre in which more than 1,000 prisoners were killed.
The Islamists with al-Qaeda links walked out of the Tripoli prison, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported. The Qadhafi Foundation, headed by Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam, confirmed the planned closure of Abu Slim, saying the remaining inmates would be transferred to another jail.
The building “will be destroyed in the next few days,” a Libyan source told AFP, adding that a residential district and a green space would replace the prison, which has often been used to detain political prisoners.
The government has begun “procedures to compensate families of martyrs who died in the clashes” in 1996, the Foundation said without giving details. Human Rights Watch said that the Libyan security forces killed at least 1,200 prisoners in a hail of bullets in 1996 in circumstances that remain unclear.
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
