 |
| Mystery of 53 dead in Sirte Mahari Hotel |
Sirte (Libya) Special Envoy - What happened in the days before the fall of Sirte and the death of Colonel Qaddafi, Thursday, October 20th at the Hotel Mahari? When he returned home, the morning of Saturday, October 22, Faraj Mohammed, near the luxury hotel, found 53 bodies lying on the grass: all men, all shot dead. They were lying on the lawn that slopes gently toward the sea still dark spots indicate the locations where the bodies were. Half of the bodies had their hands tied behind his back and wore casts and bandages, indicating their status as prisoners or wounded. All appear to have been summarily executed judging wounds to the head or the neck. Who are they? Faraj Mohammed claims to have found four people, the people of Sirte, which Ezzeddine Al-Hencheri, former Minister of Gaddafi and Moftah Dabroun, an officer.
It is impossible to know with certainty the date of death without an autopsy in good standing. It dates back between 14 and 19 October, according to Peter Bouckaert, emergencies chief of the division to the NGO human rights Human Rights Watch. Mahari Hotel is located near the Quarter Number 2, where Colonel Gaddafi and the last four of his supporters were entrenched, resisting fiercely, almost all civilians who then fled the city. The rest is history. Gaddafi tried to flee on Thursday morning October 20, aboard a convoy halted by NATO. Captured by the revolutionaries, he died while being transported by ambulance to Misrata, the result of his injuries, provides the National Transitional Council (CNT), a summary execution, accusing his family. Moatassim his son, who was arrested the same day, was seen on an amateur video talking calmly with the rebels who held.
The Mahari, transformed into a place of detention by the forces of anti-Gaddafi, he witnessed a mass execution of prisoners pro-Qaddafi. The establishment was controlled by Misrata forces since the end of the first week of October, between 7 and 10. Several groups of thowar the revolutionary fighters, had made their base, as evidenced by the walls of the hotel covered with graffiti of different brigades Misrata. The Al-Nimr katiba (the tiger in Arabic) is the present, it is one of the most powerful of Misrata, which has 230. There were also present katibas Al-Fahad (the jaguar), Al-Assad (lion) and Al Qasba (the citadel).
Misrata fighters, drunk with anger at the atrocities committed during the five months of siege and shelling of their city, they would have wanted revenge. The commander of the Al-Nimr katiba denies any involvement. "The hotel has never been a place of detention. On the morning of October 20, we were attacked by Gaddafi and his forces. We had to leave the place. When we came back the next day the bodies were there." To him, they were probably killed by Gaddafi "which would prevent them from speaking." An explanation unconvincing, since the Libyan seemed especially concerned about his flight that morning. The head of the military council of Misrata, Ramadan Zarmouh, for his part said that Sirte is full of graves of revolutionary arrested or disappeared for months and calls into question the identity of victims of the hotel Mahari. "They are prisoners removed by Gaddafi before their departure," he says.
Detail worse, the staff of the hospital Ibn Sina Sirte ensures that a week before the fall of the city, the revolutionaries entered the school, locked in a room physicians, and toured the rooms to retrieve injuries alleged to have participated in the fighting to take them to an unknown destination. For fear of reprisals, no one is willing to testify openly or give a figure, even the Ukrainian pediatrician remained throughout the siege. Upstairs, the wounded also show evasive, some even refusing to disclose the nature of their injuries for fear of being identified as combatants. If this massacre is found, it will not be the first attributed to the rebels. The Gaddafi regime, he, has been used to a much more systematic and significant. Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch, the murders of the Mahari Hotel "require the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities," who must conduct a survey.
News by Lemonde
