Free to kill: 53 Gaddafi loyalists reported executed

Human Rights Watch claims it has found 53 decaying bodies of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists in his hometown of Sirte. The human rights group said on Monday that these people must have been executed by revolutionaries.

“Some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot,” claimed Peter Bouckaert from Human Rights Watch (HRW), investigating the killings.HRW says it has found the bodies on Sunday at the Hotel Mahari in District 2. That area of Sirte is considered to have been controlled by anti-Gaddafi forces.The group considers the accident to be part of the murders and lootings from some opposition forces that do not want to obey any law at all. HRW calls for Libya to get these people under control. Britain and the US have urged Libyan authorities to investigate the atrocities.Over the weekend an AFP reporter found 60 corpses on the lawn of the Al-Mahari hospital and noted that many of the victims had been killed execution-style, with a bullet to the head. Some had been bound hand and foot. According to NTC fighters quoted by the agency, at the time of the murders the hospital was being used as a makeshift prison by Gaddafi’s men who, they charged, carried out the executions before abandoning the place.More violence has been tracked in Tripoli, where 50 charred skeletons were found. These are believed to have been executed by Gaddafi’s fleeing forces.