EVIDENCE collected by Human Rights Watch indicts Misrata-based militias for the execution of dozens of detainees following the capture and murder of Muammar Gadaffi one year ago.
The 50-page report details the final hours of Muammar Gadaffi’s life and the circumstances under which he was killed.
Hours before his death, a 50-car convoy of 250 fighters had tried to make a break from Sirte.
Two NATO missiles forced the group to abandon the cars and proceed on foot.
The report presents evidence that Misrata-based militias captured and disarmed members of the Gadaffi convoy and, after bringing them under their total control, subjected them to brutal beatings.
They then executed at least 66 captured members of the convoy at the nearby Mahari Hotel.
The evidence indicates that opposition militias took Gadaffi’s wounded son Mutassim from Sirte to Misrata and killed him there.
‘The evidence suggests that opposition militias summarily executed at least 66 captured members of Gadaffi’s convoy in Sirte,’ said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.
‘It also looks as if they took Mutassim Gadaffi, who had been wounded, to Misrata and killed him there.
‘Our findings call into question the assertion by Libyan authorities that Muammar Gadaffi was killed in crossfire, and not after his capture.’
Human Rights Watch states: ‘Under the laws of war, the killing of captured combatants is a war crime, and Libyan civilian and military authorities have an obligation to investigate war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.
‘A Human Rights Watch research team was nearby when Gadaffi’s convoy engaged in its final battle with opposition forces, on October 20, 2011.
‘Following the battle, the research team visited the site and found more than 100 bodies, most killed in combat.
‘Two days later, the Human Rights Watch research team found the decomposing remains of at least 53 people at the nearby Mahari Hotel, some with their hands still bound behind their backs.’
Human Rights Watch stated that it viewed mobile phone footage: ‘In the footage, Muammar Gadaffi is severely beaten by opposition forces and stabbed with a bayonet in his buttocks, causing more injuries and bleeding.
‘By the time he is filmed being loaded into an ambulance half-naked, he appears lifeless.’
