(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Khalid Sharif, military spokesman for the National Transitional Council, said on Sunday that remains of the executed detainees were unearthed at Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim jail.
“We found the place where all these martyrs were buried,” Sharif was quoted by AFP as saying.
Salim al-Farjani, a member of the committee set up to look for mass graves, appealed for help in identifying the remains because they lacked sophisticated equipment needed for DNA testing.
“We call on foreign organizations and the international community to help us in this task of identifying the remains of more than 1,700 people,” Farjani said.
Other reports said some 1,270 inmates lost their lives in the incident.
The massacre occurred when inmates protested against the way they were treated. At the dawn of June 29, 1996, they were lined up in the courtyards of the prison.
Security forces of the former Gaddafi regime fired at the detainees with Kalashnikov rifles before using pistols at close range to finish the inmates off, according to accounts from survivors who talked to human rights groups.
The bodies were kept in prison before they were buried in 2000, NTC authorities said.
Acid had been poured on the corpses to eliminate any evidence of the massacre, the committee members said.
The dictatorial regime had for years concealed the truth but the horrors of the gruesome act came to international highlight when one of the prison guards spoke out and human rights groups launched probes.
The families of the victims had rejected the money that the Gaddafi regime had offered as compensation and insisted that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
The initial demonstrations that eventually led to the country’s revolution kicked off in the eastern city of Benghazi in February when families of Abu Salim victims called for protests against the detention of their lawyer.
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