02 June 2005
Daif Al Ghazal
Torture
Libyan writer and journalist Daif Al Ghazal, who wrote articles critical of the regime for the London-based online newspaper Libya Al-Youm, was found dead on 2 June.
Al Ghazal was kidnapped at around midnight on 21 May by two armed men, who forced his car to a stop and took him away into their own vehicle. He said the two gunmen identified themselves as national security officials. Al Ghazal's barely recognizable body was found on 2 June in the eastern city of Benghazi.
The autopsy report referred to many signs of torture. Most of his fingers had been severed, and the body had multiple bruises and stab wounds. He had been finished off by a shot to the head. Aged 32, Al Ghazal worked for ten years for the pro-government Movement of Revolutionary Committees (MRC). Al Ghazal also wrote for four years for the daily newspaper Al-Zhaf al-Akhdar ("The Green March", in Arabic), which belongs to the MRC. But he then took a strong stand on the corruption prevailing within the MRC and decided to stop writing for the government press.
