الرئيسية
Two Libyan women walk past a mosque in one of the alleys
of Tripoli's Old City in October 2011. The International Criminal Court
Thursday began a probe into sex crimes by Moamer Kadhafi's troops
during the revolt against him as three women spoke of their suffering
under the slain dictator's rule.(AFP/File/Karim Sahib)
By Jay Deshmukh, AFP
TRIPOLI (AFP) - The International Criminal Court Thursday
began a probe into sex crimes by Moamer Kadhafi's troops during the
revolt against him as three women spoke of their suffering under the
slain dictator's rule.
An ICC team led by investigator Jane
O'Toole arrived in Tripoli on Wednesday to look into accusations of how
diehards of Kadhafi raped and victimised women during the eight-month
revolt which finally overthrew and killed him.
"There are lot of
stories. We are here to make a preliminary investigation," O'Toole told
AFP late on Wednesday on the sidelines of a conference on women in
Tripoli.
She said the ICC team would probe all aspects of serious sex crimes against women during the revolt.
"We
are not into investigating every crime but those which are most grave
and those that are major crimes," she said, adding that the
investigation would look into who ordered them.
ICC chief
prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in June that the court's
investigators had evidence that Kadhafi ordered mass rapes and bought
containers of sex drugs for troops to attack women during the revolt.
He
said there was evidence that the Libyan authorities bought
"Viagra-type" medicines and gave them to troops as part of an official
rape policy.
Late on Wednesday, the ICC team attending the
women's conference heard horrific accounts from three women who spoke
publicly of their plight at the hands of Kadhafi officials before and
during the rebellion.
Latifah Mesbah Humayyar said she was
gang-raped by Kadhafi officials in 1999 at the Tripoli orphanage where
she grew up and remained for much of her adult life.
"I stayed in that institution for 38 years and it was there that I suffered utmost pain and suffering," she said.
"I
was raped by officials from the health department of the orphanage
because I spoke openly against Kadhafi. It was shocking. People who were
supposed to take care of orphans like me turned into enemies.
"There
was a steady sexual assault on me. I suffered extreme sexual and
physical damage. All of this was done by the previous regime. It could
not have occurred without the knowledge of higher authorities in the
regime," she said.
She appealed for the ICC to "investigate and bring the criminals to justice."
Women's
activist and blogger Ghaida Touati said she was held for three months
in Tripoli's notorious Abu Slim prison during the revolt after being
detained just four days after meeting Kadhafi himself at his Bab
al-Aziziya compound.
"I met him and spoke of how there was
violence against women in Libya and he said: 'You are a brave girl and
we need many girls like you in Libya'. Four days later I was arrested,"
Touati said.
She said she was held in Abu Slim from February 16 to May 15, most of the time in solitary confinment.
"I
was threatened, abused and insulted. All this for writing on violence
against women. It is our duty to bring these criminals of Kadhafi to
justice... criminals who invaded our privacy just because we asked for
freedom.
"I hope the international community helps us by taking our cases to the International (Criminal) Court," she said.
Another woman who gave her name only as Mona said she too was detained under Kadhafi's regime and held for months in Abu Slim.
"For
several days, I was not given food or water. I was taken from my home
at 2 am. I had a son who was just a year and a half old at that time,"
she said.
"Those days in the jail were the harshest days of my
life," she said, accusing former Libyan spymaster Abdullah al-Senussi of
being behind her arrest.
"I wish that like Kadhafi, Senussi too was dead. He terrified me the most," Mona said.
Senussi, whose whereabouts are still unknown, is wanted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.