A BBC journalist
arrested and held by Muammar Gaddafi's forces during
the Libya uprising has returned to the prison where
he was held to track down some of the wardens and
prisoners housed there and to hear first-hand
accounts of a massacre. In March 2011 Feras Kilani
and two of his colleagues working for BBC Arabic
were detained outside Zawiya by Gaddafi’s forces and
then subjected to several days of physical and
mental abuse. One year later, Feras returns to ‘the
farm’ in southern Tripoli, a sprawling series of
building next to an army barracks where he was
subjected to torture and mock executions by members
of the Khamis brigade – the most feared and
ferocious of Gaddafi’s armed forces. He meets one of
the prisoners held with him, who describes how they
were kept for weeks in cages, unable to sit down and
regularly beaten. Many of those prisoners
disappeared and were never seen again. But where are
those responsible now? Feras tracks down three
members of the Khamis brigade, finding them in
hiding in Tunisia. They describe how torture and
beating were committed on a daily basis, and how
family members of suspected rebel fighters were
taken to ‘the farm’ and gang-raped on a regular
basis. They also admit that in the last two months
of the conflict nearly all the prisoners held there
were executed by Khamis brigade members. But the
reaction by the rebels to these abuses was also
brutal. Travelling to Tawergha, Feras finds a
ghost-town. Thousands of civilians fled the city
after the rebels broke out of Misrata and headed
towards the city. Feras investigates rumours that
hundreds of civilians were killed in revenge for the
support they gave the Gaddafi forces. He also finds
evidence that many Libyan civilians were tortured
and executed by the rebels – falsely accused of
being mercenaries from Chad or Niger.
