Caught on video: The horrifying proof that Libya's freedom fighters have turned into brutal torturers

[WestVirginiaRebel]

UK Daily Mail:

A terrified Libyan man is beaten and tortured with electric shocks by youths who appear to be former revolutionary fighters.

The images, taken from a video handed to The Mail on Sunday in a Tripoli refugee camp, will be seen as fresh evidence that those who deposed Colonel Gaddafi with the help of the West are adopting methods as brutal as the dead tyrant’s.

The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy.

The men, one of whom is wearing combat trousers and is armed with a knife, tell the man that ‘blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done’.

The new video images follow growing protests about abuse and torture in parts of the country.

Doctors from the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have pulled out after refusing to deal with the results of such brutality in their clinics.

According to sources, the youths in the video were former rebels who refused to surrender their weapons at the end of the civil war in October – and are intent on revenge on those they suspect of having supported Gaddafi.

They are said to have driven in armed trucks into the al-Fellah ‘internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp in a suburb of Tripoli, firing at crowds and searching homes until they found men on their list of ‘suspects’.

– which was loyal to Gaddafi during the conflict until the town was ransacked by fighters from nearby Misrata city.

Before Gaddafi was killed, the rebels had been under siege from his forces for weeks in Misrata – a port 150 miles east of Tripoli.

When some of the Misrata rebels arrived at the camp, Mr Gersh was so frightened he wore women’s clothes to disguise himself.

In the film he cries out as he is whipped and is told: ‘You are from Towerga, you dog. You say you did nothing in Misrata, so why are you in disguise? We found weapons in every house in Towerga. Your hand is bleeding and we hope it is paralysed.’

The men chant as they reach for live electric wires: ‘Everyone we catch is innocent, they say.

‘Well, blood will come from your eyes and nose until you admit what you have done. We’ve caught 60 of you so far and none of you did anything.’

It is not clear when the footage was taken or what happened to Mr Gersh.

Camp manager Mohamed al-Mabruk, who handed over the footage, said: ‘The fighters from Misrata have kept their weapons and vowed to capture everyone who supported Gaddafi.

‘They come on regular raids to our three camps in Tripoli and take anyone they want. They beat them and torture them to get them to confess to rape and murder.’

Locals said Towerga residents were known supporters of Gaddafi and are among 8,500 people believed to be held in secret camps all over the country.

Mr al-Mabruk is helpless to stop the raids. He said: ‘You can do nothing against the Misrata militias.

'We are all terrified of them. The government, the police and the army cannot stop them.’

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How's that Lybian revolution working out?