An organization run by one of Libyan leader Muammar
Qaddafi's sons, The Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation,
said the militants had agreed to give up their extremist ideology and violence
before they were released.
Wearing white traditional robes, the mostly young
detainees were assembled in a tent put up in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison where
they their families joined them.
Bin Laden's former driver, Nasser Tailamoun, and former
Guantanamo detainee Abu Sofian Ben Guemou, handed over by the Americans in
2007, were among those released, according to the Kadhafi Foundation.
The others were members of or connected with the LIFG, or
jihadists who collaborated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq or in north Africa, a prison
official said.
The release came just before the 41st anniversary of the
Libyan revolution, which brought Col. Qaddafi to power.
The foundation has said that hundreds of former militants
have been freed in the past few years after passing educational and religious
programs to rid themselves of extremist ideology.
A source close to the foundation, headed by Seif
Al-Islam, said 150 more inmates would be released soon.
According to the foundation, "these people had
completed their rehabilitation program, which was aimed at getting the
prisoners to renounce violence and reintegrate them into Libyan society."
The foundation's human rights spokesman Mohamed Allagui said it was
"working to free the other detainees so that there will no longer be any
prisoners of opinion in Libya."
Among them were 34 members of the LIFG, including the three
leaders of the group -- top boss Abdelhakim Belhaj, military chief Khaled Shrif
and ideological official Sami Saadi The group, made up of Libyans who had been
in Afghanistan to combat Soviet invaders in the 1980s, announced its existence
in 1995, saying its objective was to overthrow the Qaddafi regime and replace
it with a radical Islamic one.
In 2007, Al-Qaeda announced that the LIFG had joined the
jihadist network and Abu Laith Al-Libi, one of Bin Laden's top lieutenants, was
thought to be directing it for a time from Central Asia.
Libi was killed in a 2008 US missile strike in the tribal
zone of northwest Pakistan and last year, the Qaddafi Foundation announced that
militants being held in Libyan prisons that had previously had links with
Al-Qaeda had renounced those ties.
