Amnesty International Report 1999 - Libya

LIBYA

Five prisoners of conscience arrested in 1973 continued to serve life sentences. Scores of possible prisoners of conscience were arrested during the year in connection with their religious or political activities. Hundreds of political prisoners, including possible prisoners of conscience, remained in detention. Some were detained without charge or trial, others continued to be held despite acquittal by courts. Torture and ill-treatment were reported. At least three people were sentenced to death.

In August a draft resolution, put forward by the USA and the United Kingdom (UK), to try the two Libyan nationals suspected of involvement in the 1988 bombing of a US passenger airliner (see Amnesty International Report 1995) before Scottish judges at the Hague in the Netherlands was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council. The resolution would suspend the UN sanctions on Libya, imposed since 1992, as soon as both suspects arrived in the Netherlands. At the end of the year the Libyan government was still seeking guarantees relating to the trial and possible imprisonment of the defendants.

The trial of five people accused of a bomb attack – two Palestinians, a former Libyan diplomat and two Germans – continued in Germany (see Amnesty International Report 1998). The prosecution claimed that the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque in 1986, apparently targeting US military personnel, had been carried out on direct orders from the Libyan intelligence service. In July a court in Berlin ruled that the confession of a former Libyan diplomat, Musbah ‘Eter, was inadmissible because a prosecutor had wrongly given the impression that he would be spared a life prison sentence if he confessed to a role in the bombing. A few days later the prosecution challenged this ruling before an appeal court, which rejected the challenge saying that there was no reason to suspect the court (that made the July ruling) had been partial. In August the prosecution appealed again before a different chamber of the appeal court; at the end of the year no decision had been taken.

Five prisoners of conscience, who were arrested in 1973 and convicted of membership of the prohibited Islamic Liberation Party, continued to serve life sentences (see previous Amnesty International Reports).

Scores of possible prisoners of conscience were detained during the year in connection with their political or religious beliefs and were still held without charge or trial at the end of 1998. In June and July around 100 professionals, including engineers and university lecturers, were arrested on suspicion of supporting or sympathizing with al-Jama‘a al-Islamiya al-Libiya, Libyan Islamic Group, an underground Islamist movement which was not known to have used or advocated violence. The arrests took place in a number of major cities, particularly Benghazi. Those arrested included Mohammad Faraj al-Qallal, an executive in a printing house in Benghazi, who was arrested in early June by plainclothes security men. He was given no reason for his arrest. Ahmad Jaballah al-Maghrebi was reportedly arrested near the Egypt-Libya border while trying to flee the country with his family. He was allegedly beaten in front of his family by the security men carrying out his arrest. At the end of the year the whereabouts of all those arrested in June and July remained unacknowledged. The detainees were reportedly held in Abu Salim and ‘Ain Zara prisons, Tripoli, where they were allegedly at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Hundreds of political prisoners arrested in previous years, including possible prisoners of conscience, remained held without charge or trial. Among them were Rashid ‘Abd al-Hamid al-‘Urfia and Muhammad Suleiman al-Qaid (see Amnesty International Report 1998), who remained in Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli. ‘Omar al-Turbi, a dentist suspected of political opposition activities, continued to be held without charge or trial since his arrest in 1984. ‘Omar al-Duffani, who had been arrested in 1995 because of his alleged Islamist opposition activities, also remained held without charge or trial. He was initially held in a detention centre in ‘Ain Zara and was reportedly tortured. His family was not informed of his whereabouts, but in 1998 they heard unofficially that he was being detained in Abu Salim Prison.

Scores of other political detainees remained held despite having been tried and acquitted by courts. Others continued to serve prison sentences imposed in previous years after grossly unfair trials. Among them were the al-Fitouri family and others arrested and sentenced with them (see Amnesty International Report 1998).

At least 31 Libyan nationals – men, women and children – who had been detained in Saudi Arabia without charge or trial for more than two years following the November 1995 bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard training centre in Riyadh were forcibly returned to Libya in April or May (see Saudi Arabia entry). They were arrested following their arrival in Libya and their whereabouts at the end of the year were not known. Among them were ‘Amer al-J‘ayed, Khayri al-Fitouri Nasrat, Mahmoud al-Fitouri and ‘Abd al-Karim al-Zawi.

A Libyan family – al-Sayyid Mohammad Shabou, his wife Manal Hussein, and their two children, Mohammad and Ahmad – were forcibly returned to Libya by Saudi Arabia in May or June allegedly because of al-Sayyid Mohammad Shabou's Islamist opposition activities (see Saudi Arabia entry). The family had been granted refugee status in the UK in November 1997 and travelled to Saudi Arabia in January for the pilgrimage. Manal Hussein and her children were released in Libya but al-Sayyid Mohammad Shabou continued to be held, reportedly without charge or trial, at the end of the year.

At least three people were known to have been sentenced to death during the year, but the total could have been much higher as information on death sentences and executions is rarely reported. Three men, all Ghanaian nationals, were sentenced to death after being found guilty of the murder in 1995 of a garage owner in Ghat, southwest Libya. All three reportedly denied the charges and appealed against the verdict. At the end of the year no details were available as to the outcome of the appeal.

Amnesty International continued to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience and for all other political prisoners to be granted fair and prompt trials or released. No information was made available as to whether the Egyptian government carried out a new inquiry into the 1993 "disappearance" in Egypt of Mansur Kikhiya, a former Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister and a human rights defender (see Amnesty International Report 1998). Mansur Kikhiya's wife, Baha al-‘Emari, through her lawyer in Egypt, continued to use all legal avenues to obtain compensation from the Egyptian government, which she blamed for her husband's "disappearance".

In October the UN Human Rights Committee examined Libya's implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and expressed concerns about allegations of extrajudicial, arbitrary or summary executions by state agents, the systematic use of torture, and the high incidence of arbitrary arrests and detention, including prolonged detention without trial. The Committee also expressed concern that in violation of Article 6(2) of the ICCPR, the death penalty was not being imposed solely for the most serious crimes and recommended that legal provisions be introduced that were compatible with this Article.