Libya: Wave of Political Assassinations
Lack of Accountability Risks Escalating Violence
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/08/libya-wave-political-assassinations
AUGUST 8, 2013
(Beirut) – At least 51 people have died in a broadening wave of
apparent political assassinations in the cities of Benghazi and Derna
in volatile eastern Libya. Authorities have not prosecuted
anyone for these crimes, and have no suspects in custody, as far as
Human Rights Watch has been able to determine.
The July
26, 2013, killing of Abdulasalam Elmessmary, was the first of a
political activist since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted. The
assassination appeared to signal a new turn in the violence with
potentially serious implications for Libya’s stability. The other
victims include two judges and at least 44 serving members of the
security forces, most of whom had held positions in Gaddafi’s
government. At least six were high-ranking officers under
Gaddafi.
“What started as assassinations of members of the
police, internal security apparatus, and military intelligence has
been further aggravated by the killing of judges and a political
activist,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa
director. “The failure to hold anyone accountable highlights the
government’s failure to build a functioning justice
system.”
According to cases documented by Human Rights
Watch, political assassinations in Benghazi and Derna peaked in the
second half of 2012, and again in January and July 2013. While there
have been reports of assassinations in other parts of the country,
they have mostly been centered in the east.
Human Rights Watch
interviewed relatives, friends or witnesses of eight of the victims.
Relatives told Human Rights Watch that as far as they could
determine, Libyan law enforcement officials had not conducted
comprehensive investigations. They said law enforcement agents did
not investigate at the crime scene, summon any potential witnesses,
or provide information to the families about their
investigations.
Law enforcement officials acknowledged to
Human Rights Watch that they had not concluded any of the
investigations despite trying to conduct investigations into the
assassinations. They said they lacked sophisticated means to
investigate, faced many obstacles due to the prevailing security
situation, and lacked the means to summon witnesses without the use
of force.
No groups or individuals have claimed responsibility
for the assassinations. The only person known to have been arrested
escaped.
On July 23, Interior Minister Mohammad Khalifa
al-Sheikh said at a news conference that “people with a
past criminal record,” were behind the killings. He said that some
of their identities were known but could not be revealed since the
information was classified, and that the government was investigating
and collecting information.
On July 28, Justice Minister Salah
al-Marghani said the government was determined to bring to
justice “those responsible for the assassinations” in Benghazi
and Derna. He said the government would consider accepting the
support of an international forensics team.
“Myriad armed
groups and criminals with various agendas are benefiting from a weak
and dysfunctional law enforcement system where they can kill even
police and judges with impunity,” Stork said. “Unless the
government takes urgent steps to actually turn its own pledges into
action and make building its police and criminal investigation units
a priority, there is a real risk of a further surge in
violence.”
The Death Toll
In the absence of comprehensive
official figures, Human Rights Watch has investigated and documented
killings of 51 victims of apparent political assassinations, though
the actual number is probably higher. The documented cases do not
include assassinations of officers and members of the security forces
committed during the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi. As far as Human
Rights Watch has been able to determine, it is the only compilation
of apparent political assassinations in Eastern Libya since the
toppling of Gaddafi.
Human Rights Watch interviewed families,
friends or witnesses of eight victims and reviewed information
provided by activists, judges, members of the prosecution, and media
reports. A local nongovernmental organization provided a list of 12
assassinations and 2 kidnappings of members of the Benghazi police
force. Human Rights Watch could not verify ranks and affiliation to
the state security forces of at least seven of the victims, or the
dates of their deaths.
According to the information obtained
by Human Rights Watch, 12 victims were apparently killed by explosive
devices targeting their cars. The rest were shot, most in drive-by
shootings, in front of their homes or workplaces, or in their
cars.
The following are some of the most recent killings, in
June and July. None of the assailants have been identified:
- On July 30, Ahmed Farraj al-Barnawi, commander of the
Benghazi Protection Force, was killed by an explosive device that
targeted his home in Benghazi.
- On July 26, Colonel Khatab Younis al-Zway and retired Colonel
Salam al-Sarrah were shot to death in two separate incidents in
Benghazi.
- On July 8, in Benghazi, an explosive device targeted the car
of Col. Fawzi Mohamed Ali al-Burki, a former internal security
apparatus officer under Gaddafi, killing him.
- On July 4, a drive-by shooting in Benghazi, an apparent
assassination attempt on Col. Hamed al-Hassi, killed two men.
Al-Hassi survived. He was an air force officer under Gaddafi,
and commands the military wing of the Cyrenaica Transitional
Council, a movement that seeks greater autonomy for eastern Libya.
- On June 26, an explosive device attached to his car killed
Jomaa al-Misrati, a commander of an infantry brigade in the Libyan
army who served as a military intelligence officer under Gaddafi.
Al-Misrati’s car exploded 150 meters from his house in Benghazi.
In January, Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi, director of the Benghazi police
Criminal Investigation Department, was kidnapped by unknown gunmen in
Benghazi. His family told Human Rights Watch on June 3 that they have
had no news of his fate. Al-Mahdawi was abducted one month after the
department made its only arrest in relation to the political
assassinations in Benghazi.
Police Failure to Act
The
Criminal Investigation Department is tasked with conducting criminal
investigations, collecting forensics evidence, identifying and
questioning witnesses and referring case files to the General
Prosecutor’s Office or the Military Attorney’s office for
prosecution. But it has not concluded its investigations into any of
these assassinations. Nor has it concluded investigations into the
dozens of kidnappings, attempted assassinations, and attacks on
police and military structures in Benghazi in 2012 and 2013 that
appear to follow the same pattern as the political assassinations
targeting mainly members of the security forces.
Human Rights
Watch interviewed witnesses to the crimes and relatives and friends
of eight of the men assassinated in Benghazi who had served in
various security agencies under Gaddafi before joining the armed
opposition in the 2011 revolt to oust him. Six of the families said
that the police, the General Prosecutor’s Office, and the Military
Prosecutor had failed to investigate, to conclude an investigation,
or to let the families know what was happening.
The eight
victims included Faraj Mohamed Idriss Drissi, Suleiman Bouzreidah and
Mohamed Haddiya al-Fitouri. They were gunned down in separate
incidents by masked assailants riding in cars, either while the
victims were in front of their houses or walking on the streets,
their relatives told Human Rights Watch. Two of the more recent
victims, Jomaa al-Misrati and Fawzi al-Burki, were killed by
explosive devices planted in their cars.
Izzeddin Abdelhafith
al-Ghweili, acting head of Benghazi Police Criminal Investigation
Department, told Human Rights Watch during an interview in June:
In the absence of functioning state institutions, amid a
proliferation of arms and of various active armed groups, we cannot
work according to our usual procedures. The main issue we face with
witnesses is that they are scared and often do not show up if they’ve
been summoned. All of these assassination cases remain unresolved. We
do not know who our enemies are anymore – there are too many of
them.
He said that Ali al-Fezzani, the only person arrested and detained
in relation to the assassinations in Benghazi, managed to flee from
prison in Tripoli.
Al-Fezzani was arrested on December 16,
2012, and initially confessed to killings including Drissi, chief of
the Benghazi Security Directorate, and Jomaa al-Kadiki, an air force
officer under Gaddafi. After al-Fezzani was detained at the Benghazi
Criminal Investigation Department, armed protesters, angry over
reports that al-Fezzani had been tortured by the police, attacked the
department headquarters on December 20.
Al-Ghweili said that
the attackers burned parts of the building and stole furniture and
surveillance cameras. Four people were killed, including a police
officer. The police hurriedly transferred al-Fezzani to al-Hadhba, a
detention facility in Tripoli under the authority of the Justice
Ministry and within the premises of the National Guard headquarters.
Al-Fezzani escaped from al-Hadhba in May and remains at large.
On
December 21, al-Marghani, the justice minister, announced at
a news conference that the General Prosecutor’s Office would
investigate al-Fezzani’s detention and torture claims. At the news
conference, Khalid al-Sharif, head of the al-Hadhba corrections
facility, said that he had seen no marks from torture on
al-Fezzani.
A video posted online shows al-Fezzani
being interrogated, apparently confessing to being an assassin
responsible for killing several people, including Drissi, and knowing
about the killings of several other officers. In the video,
al-Fezzani says that commanders of Islamist militias operating in
Eastern Libya gave orders for the killing of former officers and that
they considered it acceptable as it was “halal” [permitted] to
kill army officers and people affiliated with the current
government.
A second video taken by unidentified people and
posted online after he arrived in Tripoli shows
al-Fezzani retracting his confession, saying he had not
assassinated anyone and had confessed under torture.
Al-Ghweili
denied al-Fezzani’s accusations that he had been tortured while in
the custody of the Benghazi CID.
No group or individual has
claimed responsibility for the attacks. The fact that most of the
attacks targeted Gaddafi-era officers in the Benghazi and Derna area
and the planned and efficient manner of the killings suggest that
they are related and part of a pattern or campaign against
individuals with a particular political profile, Human Rights Watch
said.
Mohamed al-Hizaji, official spokesman of the Benghazi
Joint Security Operations, a security apparatus coordinating
activities of the Army, Police and intelligence services, highlighted
the problems the authorities face in investigating crimes since
Qaddafi’s ouster. He told Human Rights Watch in July that the
authorities “face many obstacles” when they “try to conduct
investigations,” and had not been given the means to do so. He said
the “types of criminals and methods used” had changed in recent
months, and had become even “more dangerous.” The forces only
recently began to receive means and equipment needed to conduct
investigations, he said.
A prosecutor in Benghazi who did not
wish to be named told Human Rights Watch the unresolved cases of
unlawful killings were currently “stuck at the level of police
investigations” and that prosecutors could only investigate if they
had access to “evidence, and witnesses to question.” He confirmed
the lack of an official “census” of these assassination cases and
said they dated back to the beginning of the 2011 uprising against
Muammar Gaddafi, as the first such killing was committed in March
2011.
He said the prosecutor’s office dealt with cases on an
individual basis and did not link the crimes unless they were carried
out by the same person. “I cannot conduct my work according to
trends – I need hard facts,” he said. The prosecutor’s office
had very limited investigative resources and faced difficulties in
expanding investigations and including forensic evidence, due to the
lack of more sophisticated tools such as “DNA testing, which is
only available in Tripoli,” he said.
On the prosecutors’
powers to summon and question witnesses, he said: “The reality is
that while we can issue arrest orders, there is no one to implement
them and to go and fetch someone for questioning. Who will do that?
Our work depends very much on collaboration with the police,
intelligence services.”
Broader Security Issues
The
assassinations should be seen in the context of a general lack of
security in Benghazi and the rest of the eastern region, particularly
Derna.
Since the end of the 2011, conflict, Benghazi has
experienced large-scale attacks by various militias on state security
forces facilities and army positions, as well as armed clashes
between militia factions and attacks on foreign diplomatic missions.
On June 8, the most recent large-scale clashes in Benghazi resulted
in the deaths of 32 people, most of them protesters, members of the
Army Special Forces unit, and members of militias in what became
known as “Black Saturday.”
Foreign diplomatic
missions and international organizations have been the targets of
violence since 2012. Most recently, in January, gunmen opened fire on
the Italian consul’s car in Benghazi. In April 2012, unidentified
assailants attacked a convoy in Benghazi carrying the United Nations
Special envoy to Libya, Ian Martin, and in June 2012, assailants
attacked a British embassy convoy.
In May 2012, the offices of
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were attacked. A
militia, the “Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman Brigade,” claimed
responsibility, accusing the ICRC of proselytizing for Christianity,
including distributing Bibles. No one was prosecuted for the
attacks.
And on September 11, 2012, armed groups attacked the
US consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three of his aides. As a result, diplomatic missions and
international organizations withdrew their permanent presence from
Benghazi. In May, the FBI released photos of six people
present during the attacks on the US compound. No one is known to
have been charged with the killings in Libya, though, and the General
Prosecutor’s Office has yet to conclude its investigations into
these cases. US news media reported on August 7 that the US
Justice Department had filed murder charges in the case, but no
arrests apparently have been made in Libya.
Some of the
assassinations of officers between 2012 and 2013 appear related to
the killing on July 28, 2011, of General Abdelfatah Younis, chief of
staff of the anti-Gaddafi brigades, operating under the National
Transitional Council.
A Benghazi Military Court judge who
summoned Younis in July 2011 for questioning from the front lines
over his alleged continued ties to the former regime was found dead
on July 28, 2012, along with two of his aides. Jomaa Obaidi
al-Jazawi, one of three judges investigating Younis’s death, was
assassinated in June 2012 by unidentified assailants in front of a
mosque in Benghazi.
Relatives of Bouzreidah, chief of military
intelligence, and al-Fitouri, in charge of weapons and ammunition of
the national army, said both men had been appointed directly by
Younis shortly after the outbreak of the 2011 uprising. Bouzreidah
was killed near his home in Benghazi in July 2012, and al-Fitouri was
killed in Benghazi in August 2012.
The Military Court in
Benghazi summoned the former chairman of the National Transitional
Council, Mustafa Abdeljalil, to question him over his alleged role in
approving the “arrest” of Younis. After widespread controversy,
the court dropped the case against Abdeljalil and referred
it to the Military Supreme Court. No further progress in identifying
Younis’s assassins has been announced.
Accounts by Families
and Friends
Lt. Col. Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi, 45, headed the
Benghazi Police Criminal Investigation Department. Unidentified
masked armed men kidnapped him on January 2, 2013, while he was
driving with acquaintances down a busy street in Benghazi after work.
Al-Mahdawi was the only member of the group pulled from the car and
taken away to an unknown location. A father of three, al-Mahdawi, had
worked in the investigations department for 10 years, and was
appointed its head just four days before his kidnapping. No one has
claimed responsibility for the abduction and no one has been
arrested.
His brother, Osama al-Mahdawi, told Human Rights
Watch:
For six months, we haven’t heard anything. No one has called us.
No one has made any demands… We went to the CID and filed a
complaint and they formed an investigation committee, yet, to date,
no one was arrested in my brother’s case. The armed groups are
stronger than the courts.
Abdullah Dibus, a friend of al-Mahdawi who was in the car with him
when he was seized, said:
After the incident, we [the two witnesses] went straight to the
CID to report it. We were asked questions and the next day we were
called back to the CID for more questioning. We were never approached
by the prosecutor’s office. Although the family requested that the
Ministry of Interior set up a committee to investigate the incident,
nothing has happened so far.
Faraj Mohamed Idriss Drissi, 57, was the chief of the Benghazi
Security Directorate and father of 11. On November 20, 2012,
unidentified assailants gunned him down in front of his house in
Sabri district in Benghazi. His family, hearing gunshots late at
night as Drissi was coming home from work, rushed to the front gate,
where they found his bullet-ridden body. He died on the spot, in
front of some of his children. Under Gaddafi, Drissi was a colonel in
the Security Directorate [police department] of Benghazi. After the
uprising he became chief of the Security Directorate in Benghazi, a
post he held until his assassination.
Drissi’s widow, Zainab
Abdelkarim Mohamed, told Human Rights Watch that her husband had
spoken several times with the media about his intent to empty
Benghazi of illegal arms and crime. “This is when the threats
started,” she said. “I begged him to retire but he refused.”
Although neighbors called the police and other relevant authorities
to report the killing, Drissi’s widow said she does not remember
seeing any police or other security forces in in the area to conduct
investigations or question witnesses.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed
Hadiyya al-Fitouri, 63, was in charge of weapons and ammunition for
the Libyan Army in eastern Libya under Gaddafi. Al-Fitouri retained
his position after the 2011 conflict, according to his family, at the
explicit wish of General Younis. Al-Fitouri was killed on August 10,
2012, during Ramadan, as he walked home with an elderly neighbor from
a nearby mosque.
Al-Fitouri’s family told Human Rights Watch
that a witness told them the attackers had first tried to push
al-Fitouri into a waiting car, as they shouted “traitor” and
“infidel.” When they failed, they shot him in the head, the
heart, hand, and leg. He died instantly. His family said that no one
has been arrested and the only witness to the incident – the
neighbor – has not been questioned due to his fragility and
advanced age.
“No authorities came here to ask us
about the incident concerning my husband’s death,” Amal
al-Barghatial, Fitouri’s widow, told Human Rights Watch in the
family home in Benghazi in June 2013. “No one from the prosecution
contacted us. We know of no investigation.”
Col. Suleiman
Bouzreidah, 60, a father of 10, was killed on July 28, 2012, as he
headed to a mosque near his home. He was the head of investigations
in the military intelligence unit under Gaddafi, and later head of
military intelligence for the rebels in Benghazi during the 2011
conflict, a role in which he continued until he resigned a month
before his death. His family told Human Rights Watch during a visit
in June 2013 that a car carrying several armed men, some of them
masked, shot Bouzreidah in his cheek and forehead as it drove past,
and he died immediately.
Bouzreidah effectively took over the
position under the transitional council that had been held by
Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi’s chief of intelligence, who is in
custody in Libya and is sought by the International Criminal Court on
war crimes charges during the 2011 conflict. Bouzreidah assumed the
position of chief of military intelligence on February 23, 2011, just
days after the uprising broke out and rebels took control of
Benghazi. His family said that three witnesses to Bouzreidah’s
murder gave statements to the police about the incident but that they
knew of no arrests in the case.
Bouzreidah’s widow, said she
had been afraid for her husband’s life after he accepted the
position as head of military intelligence in February 2011, and was
disappointed with the government, which “did not do anything” for
the family, who still do not know the killers’
identities.
Bouzreidah’s son, Yazeed, said the deputy
prosecutor in charge of the case had told the family he was capable
only of “collecting files [of the cases] at this stage” and did
not have sufficient manpower to conduct any “proper
investigations.” He said that a witness to the killing who had
given a statement to the police was threatened in the street a short
time later by unidentified men, who told him, “if you say anything
at all [about the incident] then we will kill you”:
No one from the authorities came to the street where my father
died to ask any questions, but instead we [the family] brought some
of the witnesses to the CID to give their statements. On the third
day of condolences after the funeral, one of the witnesses was
threatened and told if he dared say anything about the incident he
would be killed. Of course we suspect certain people affiliated with
terrorist Islamist networks here in Benghazi to be behind this crime,
but we have no evidence.
Anis Ali al-Gehani, 22, was a student and brother-in-Law of Naji
Hammad, a police officer who started “Save Benghazi Friday,” a
demonstration against militias in Benghazi soon after the attack on
the US consulate. Al-Gehani was killed on December 3, 2012. He
had been staying with his sister, in Benghazi while Hammad was in
Tripoli.
Hammad told Human Rights Watch in June that on the
morning of December 3, 2012, al-Gehani was warming the car up to drop
his sister off at work when he was shot by unknown armed men and died
of multiple gunshot wounds in his extremities, chest and head.
One witness told the family he saw four masked, bearded men in the
car, family members said. They said the police were investigating but
that no one has been arrested.
Hammad said he believed his
brother-in-law was killed by mistake, and that killers were trying to
kill Hammad for his activism and outspoken stance toward the militias
and Islamists.
Recommendations
To the government of Libya:
- Establish impartial, transparent, and independent
investigations into all assassinations committed in Libya after the
end of the 2011 conflict to oust Muammar Gaddafi leading to the
identification and prosecution of those responsible;
- Ensure that anyone detained in relation to these
assassinations has access to legal representation and is treated in
accordance with international due process standards including prompt
judicial review and prompt charging. Make public the list of those
detained in relation to the killings;
- Ensure protection of law enforcement agents during evidence
gathering and the entire investigative procedures;
- Provide adequate protection to witnesses, lawyers, judges,
court officials and prosecutors. Provide judicial police and
military police with adequate training and equipment to ensure
security of all those involved in the judicial procedures both at
civil and military courts;
- Provide criminal investigation departments with sufficient
means to carry out sophisticated investigations, including necessary
equipment and adequate training;
- Provide criminal investigation agents with proper
training to bring their performance into line with international
standards; and
- Seek financial and technical support from the UN and donor
governments to strengthen criminal investigations for these and
other crimes.
To the United Nations Mission in Libya (UNSMIL):
- Publicly press the Libyan government to investigate and
prosecute those responsible for these assassinations.
To the international community – in particular governments of
the US, UK, France, and Italy:
- Provide technical support to criminal investigation
departments to investigate the assassinations since the end of the
2011 uprising against Gaddafi, to ensure a credible and transparent
process; and
- Ensure financial support for rule of law and justice programs
to ensure that courts are able to operate fairly and according to
international legal standards.
