The nine-minute video, released Sunday on the Clear News Web site, shows 42-year-old Saadi Gaddafi being interrogated and slapped around the face in al-Hadba prison in Tripoli.
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Human Rights Watch called Tuesday on Libyan authorities to immediately investigate the alleged ill-treatment of detainees including a son of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi at a prison in Tripoli. He is also forced to listen and watch other screaming prisoners being beaten outside the room he is held in.
In April 2014, Libya’s official television station aired videos showing Saadi in a blue prison uniform apparently confessing to having worked against the country’s political system, from what appeared to be his jail in Tripoli, HRW said. Right groups say the verdict was riddled with flaws. He has been charged with the killing of one person, an athlete, while he led the Libyan Football Federation, as well as other crimes.
The video’s authenticity could be not be independently verified.
No-one appeared to have been hurt among dozens of supporters of Gaddafi, who was toppled in 2011 and killed, dictatorship then giving way to today’s chaos as two rival governments fight for power and Islamist militants build their influence.
After escaping Libya in 2011, Saadi was held under house arrest in the Niger capital Niamey before being extradited.
Tripoli’s prosecutor general said in a statement he had launched an investigation to identify the guards and “to take the necessary legal action against them”.
Saadi had a brief career as soccer player in Italy and often lived the playboy life during his father’s longtime rule.
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Libya’s internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thanni said his government rejects any foreign military intervention on the Libyan territory, official news agency LANA reported on Monday.
