TRIPOLI, 12 October 2006 — One prisoner was killed and 17 people were injured when Islamist detainees clashed with guards and police at Libya’s main Abu Salim prison last week, the country’s state prosecutor said.
In the first official statement about the Oct 4. incident, the prosecutor said while rioting prisoners attacked guards and policemen with stones and other projectiles, other detainees tried to escape over the walls, prompting guards to open fire.
The Libyan public prosecutor’s office said in a statement posted on the website of official Libyan news agency JANA that security forces had intervened to put an end to a protest by a number of inmates of the Abu Salim prison who were protesting trial delays. Some of the inmates attempted to flee “forcing those in charge of guarding the roofs and main gates to use arms to control the situation.
As a result three inmates sustained various degrees of injuries,” the statement said. “After the retreat of the inmates into their rooms, one of them (was) found lying on the ground, after examination, he was found dead,” the statement read.
The prison had reportedly given inmates a deadline of Monday to return to their cells amid fears of a repetition of a massacre at the same prison in 1996 during a protest over conditions. Rights groups said that Hafed Mansur Al-Zwai had been shot dead on Oct. 4, and called for an investigation.
