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OCTOBER 26, 2011

Signs of Executions Mar Libya Peace

By MARGARET COKER

TRIPOLI, Libya--Fresh evidence has emerged that fighters battling for control of Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte were responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings and other possible atrocities, raising new questions about the final moments in Libya's revolution and adding to the challenges of national reconciliation.

Residents of Sirte and medical workers say that they have identified dozens of corpses of both Gadhafi loyalists and antiregime fighters, who appear to have died by shots to the back of the head while their hands were bound.

They say these bodies are among hundreds of unidentified corpses littering the streets of Sirte and filling the hospital morgues.

The news of possible atrocities during the final battle of the eight-month war to oust Gadhafi comes as controversy has swirled about the death of the former leader on Thursday. Gadhafi was captured alive in Sirte but later died in custody of fighters from Misrata, who were leading the military operation to seize control of the city.

The head of Libya's interim governing authority, the National Transitional Council, said Monday that he had ordered a full investigation into Gadhafi's death.

While few Libyans are bothered with the legal issues surrounding the last moments of their former leader, the emerging details of brutality in Sirte could have consequences for the transition to democracy.

Political negotiations are under way within the NTC to form a newly expanded transitional government that will include members of all political factions and representatives from all Libyan regions, including Sirte and Bani Walid, the last Gadhafi strongholds to fall.

Those negotiations could take between two weeks and a month to form what will be Libya's interim authority until elections could be held next year, according to NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil.

Many Libyans are upset about the prospect of including these two cities due to favoritism Gadhafi showed them during his 42-year rule, while some residents of the cities question whether they can receive equal treatment under a new government.

Numerous Sirte residents who are returning to their city after fleeing the nearly three weeks of fierce fighting there say their homes have been looted and destroyed, and they don't know where to turn for help.

"We the residents of Sirte...have been victims of Gadhafi and now maybe victims of rebels too," said a dentist from Sirte, whose brothers fought for the anti-Gadhafi forces. "My family home has been burned, our belongings are gone. We want to know who is responsible," she said.

Details about the final days of fighting in Sirte are still emerging. Human-rights researchers and residents say they have found at least two apparent mass killing sites in the city, where at least 63 bodies have been recovered.

A collection of 53 bodies was discovered in Sirte on Sunday, on the lawn outside a hotel in the neighborhood known as District 2, where the final day of fighting took place on Oct. 20.

Many of those killed showed signs of being executed while their hands were bound, according to three people who viewed the bodies.

Residents identified many of the bodies as Gadhafi loyalists, including a former minister of his government and a military officer from Sirte, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch, which is investigating the allegations of atrocities in the city and interviewed medical workers collecting the bodies for removal. The organization says that the rate of decomposition indicates that killing could have happened as early as Oct. 14.

Anti-Gadhafi fighters had taken control of that area of Sirte around one week before the city fell, according to two residents of Sirte. They said they didn't know the identities of the rebel commanders directly in charge.

The Misrata Military Council, a command center from the coastal town between Sirte and the capital Tripoli, was in charge of the Sirte offensive, overseeing the multiple brigades from Misrata and other parts of the country.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, says that graffiti around the Hotel Mahari indicates that at least five different Misrata-based brigades held positions in the area.

In interviews Monday with The Wall Street Journal, four commanders from the Misrata Military Council said that they didn't know which of their local brigades had been in control of the hotel between Oct. 14 and Oct. 20. The commanders declined to comment on allegations of executions in Sirte.

Two officers said that brigades acted independently of their oversight and that they could provide no more information about the chain of command. "There was a war. There were lots of fighters involved. What else can I tell you?" said Abd al-Karim Bu Sneina, a spokesman for the military council.

Two anti-Gadhafi fighters who were participating in the battle for District 2 on Oct. 20 said that many rebel fighters went on a rampage through Sirte after learning of the news of Gadhafi's capture.

Until that time, commanders away from the front line had been very strict in deploying platoons of fighters into the city, they said. But on Thursday, streets were suddenly teeming with new gunmen who appeared to have entered Sirte for a chance to loot, not fight, these two fighters said.

"It was suddenly chaos. There was no law or order. People were driving away with cars, robbing houses. I saw things that I was ashamed of," said Ousama Tantoush, a 24-year-old student from Tripoli whose district militia deployed to Sirte.

Last weekend, at a separate site in District 2, medical workers found 10 corpses floating in a water reservoir. At least two had their hands bound, according to two people who saw the bodies on Sunday. Many were badly decomposed and only partially clothed, making identification difficult, these people said.Human Rights Watch said the physical evidence indicated that these people had been executed at least one week before the rebel fighters seized control of that area of the city. That would suggest that Gadhafi loyalists were involved in the killing.

Multiple alleged atrocitries by Gadhafi loyalists have been documented in the capital, Tripoli, following its fall in August, as well as during earlier battles for disputed cities during the revolution.

The interim government hasn't said if it will launch investigations into these events or and hasn't delivered a detailed mechanism through which people can claim damages from the fighting.

Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com