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23 May 2011 14:27

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World: Captured Gaddafi soldier claims campaign of rape in Misrata

  • …we shot every one of them in the leg. … Then the officers took the girls upstairs, and we were told to go on the roof [to keep guard] until the officers had finished the rape and then we were told to rape the girls too.
  • A 17-year-old member of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, currently in opposition custody • Describing what he saw as a soldier. Andrew Harding of the BBC News, who wrote this article, makes the point that he isn’t positive whether the young man was telling the truth, considering the vested interest opposition forces might have in coercing him to portray his former colleagues in the worst possible light. That said, his remarks about what’s been happening in Misrata (through an interpreter) are harrowing. He describes being instructed to rape women, on threat of being beaten if they refused. He admits to committing a rape himself, and claims to have received about $8 reward for it. It’s a gruesome read, but worthy of being informed about. These are hardly the first reports of rape to come out of Libya in the midst of its civil war, but this new suggestion takes the brutality to new, horrible levels. source

31 Mar 2011 13:53

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World: British officials say no deal struck with Moussa Koussa

  • NOMoussa Koussa was not offered immunity to defect source
  • » So say British officials: Koussa, the former Libyan Foreign Minister who defected yesterday, had been a cornerstone of the Gaddafi regime dating back to the 1969 revolution. As such, it wasn’t unreasonable upon learning of his defection to wonder just how dirty his hands were. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court lists Koussa as having had command control over Libyan forces suspected of “crimes against humanity” during his long career as Gaddafi’s confidant. If he has indeed defected with no assurance of legal immunity, that might be indicative of how Gaddafi’s inner circle is feeling right now. Here’s hoping more of these dominoes start to fall.

04 Mar 2009 10:43

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World: Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir charged with war crimes

  • He is suspected of being criminally responsible … for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan; murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.
  • International Criminal Court spokesman Laurence Blairon • On Omar al-Bashir, who is the first sitting president to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the six-year conflict, nearly 300,000 Darfuris have died. • source