Next Gen News

In September a mass grave was discovered in Abu Salim, a maximum security prison in Libya: the evidence of a notorious massacre claim. Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin entered the house, and spoke with former detainees and relatives of victims on how the struggle for justice has started a revolution

Gallery: Inside Abu Salim

In the summer of 2003, Aliya al-Sherif, and his mother, Falih, Falih went to visit her husband, Mustafa, Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. It was not an easy journey. 24 hours that led from his home in Benghazi Aliya white guy from Audi. For a period of four hours online at the midday heat with no thank you outside the prison white, dragging on with boxes of food, shampoo, clothing and medicines, with 60 other families.

They had made the same journey of more than 30 times since Mustafa, an engineer, had been imprisoned without trial for eight years before. The family never knew why, and could guess who had fallen out of favor with the officials at work. "I remember the day I took my father. I was four. I was crying. I wanted a candy from my mother. "It was June 24, 1995. Aliya never forget the day: it was the last time you saw your father

green doors steel giant had been opened to take in the gifts and letters he had written with such tenderness and hope. All gave their gifts to the guards. None of the lining that day to see the person who came to visit. An elderly woman so distressed not to be able to see her son collapsed and died. "It was horrible," said Aliya, now a medical student in second year.

Later that year, news of a prisoner released from the family came to Aliya boxes of food that has not reached Mustafa, or anyone. Prison guards have stolen gifts. Not only that, but the guards and his accomplices went door to door across Libya, collecting gifts for the relatives of the victims outside the days allocated quarterly visit. Then the Aliyah and her mother stopped going. It was not until 2009 that the family learned the truth. Mustafa al-Sherif had been dead for 13 years

Mustafa was a victim of the massacre of the Abu Salim prison, the massacre of some 1,270 prisoners over two days in 1996. At that time, Hussein al-Shafi'i, who now has political asylum in the United States, worked in the kitchen of the prison with five other people. Almost all detainees at Abu Salim were political prisoners, detained without trial and angry young socialist was imprisoned from 1988 to 2001 on "political crimes". In a coffee bar in the city of Benghazi, where he returned to celebrate the revolution, al-Shafi'i aboard his 10-month-old son and I Noor said he witnessed the events that led to the slaughter through windows and doors of service. An event started at some prisoners demanding better conditions. Distributing food two guards were taken hostage. One, whose name was Omar, he later died. Guards keys used to open the cells.

prisoners ran to the courtyard. As they did, the guards came up the stairs steel exterior and fired from the roof. Six dead and 14 wounded. It was the afternoon of June 28, 1996. Meanwhile, Abdullah Senoussi, Muammar Gaddafi, the brother and intelligence chief, Abdullah Mansour with a cousin and commander of special forces, came and asked the negotiators of each cell block. Five men sat on chairs in the courtyard of the prison and called for calm to improve medical conditions, fresh air, go outside, guests (who did not for seven years), appropriate tests and better food.

According to al-Shafi'i, I could hear the conversation, the concessions were offered. However, no guarantee of witnesses in the form of European diplomats and tribal leaders, prisoners have refused the terms. It was about midnight. Senoussi finally agreed to most demands of the prisoners, and all returned to their cells. Placed new locks on the doors. The hostage was released survive.

Abu Salim

consists of two main sections: one civil and military. All this activity took place about six blocks of cells in the calendar section. In 0430, a group of prisoners who are considered the lowest risk were derived from the civil part of the military wing. One of them was al-Shafi'i. Another was Dr. Giummara Attig, human rights activist and lawyer falsely accused and acquitted of the murder of a Libyan diplomat in Rome. The group of about 270 prisoners were forced to lie face against the ground for several hours until the silence was broken by gunfire and screams.

"The news of the killing was slow to flee," explains Professor Abdallah Shami, now Minister of Economic Affairs in the National Transitional Council of Libya. Shamia was tortured in Benghazi before being sent to Abu Salim in 1998 while working as a professor of economics at the University of Garyounis. Messages are transmitted through the holes cut in the drywall cell division, with letters to rights groups humans, the prisoners were released.

despite efforts to cover the killing Gaddafi, organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International requires access to the prison. The 10 th anniversary in 2006 provided a focal point at the international level, when the regime itself, in the person of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Abu Salim condemned to be renovated and many prisoners released as part of a vast effort to clean up the image of the regime.

When we gather in Benghazi, El-Ghazala Massheeti crying uncontrollably as I said, he could not cope with their four children are telling the truth when her husband, Hussein al-Idris Sheaff was taken to Abu Salim, 39, 1995. Instead, she says, "He went into the desert to make money." The children listened to the taunts of other children whose families have known what really happened. Ghazala made several visits to Abu Salim of his eldest daughter, Alla. "The guards took the food and clothes at the door," he said. He was informed of his death, only in June 2009 when he received a certificate death to the date of death wrong.