LIBYA’S INTERIM authorities have announced the discovery of a mass grave believed to contain the remains of more than 1,200 inmates executed by regime forces in a prison in the capital city in 1996.
If confirmed that the site holds the remains of those who perished in the massacre, it will mark an important step in Libya’s reckoning with its past. The site is located near the notorious Abu Salim jail where the killings took place after prisoners protested over horrendous conditions.
The uprising that overthrew Muammer Gadafy was triggered by relatives protesting over those killed at Abu Salim. The families took to the streets of the eastern city of Benghazi in February to demand the release of their lawyer.
For years, the regime denied that the massacre at Abu Salim had happened. The first public acknowledgement was by Gadafy in 2004. To date, however, there has been no official account of what exactly happened that day.
A spokesman for the Tripoli Military Council said yesterday that investigators had found the mass grave about two weeks ago after obtaining information from witnesses and former security officials captured after the capital fell.
He said the authorities would ask for international assistance in excavating and identifying the remains because the Libyans were not equipped to test DNA.
“It may take years to reach the truth,” said Dr Osman Abdul Jalil, a medical official.
Meanwhile, Nato carried out air strikes in and around Gadafy’s hometown of Sirte – one of the last bastions of pro-Gadafy resistance – as forces aligned with Libya’s interim government, the National Transitional Council, continued their push to take the town.
Council forces had earlier advanced to within a few hundred metres of the town centre, but later pulled back to allow Nato air strikes.
Nato said its sorties on Saturday in the vicinity of Sirte had struck targets including two command and control facilities, a military staging area, a storage bunker and radar facility and 29 armed vehicles.
Sirte’s fate is crucial as the council attempts to establish credibility as an interim government. Its capture would be a huge blow to the fugitive Gadafy, who is widely believed to be somewhere inside the country.
Pro-Gadafy fighters in the town, on which the deposed leader lavished funds during his 42-year rule, have put up fierce resistance. Many of Sirte’s residents have tribal links to Gadafy.
In a separate development, council officials said revolutionary forces had repulsed an attack in the desert oasis town of Ghadames by pro-Gadafy elements who crossed the border from Algeria on Saturday. They said six people had died in the fire fight.
Ghadames, about 600km (373 miles) southwest of Tripoli, is close to a border crossing that pro-Gadafy Libyans, including his wife and three of his children, have used to flee into Algeria. The cross-border attack has fuelled fears that Libya could face an extended insurgency by regime diehards.