NEW YORK, May 11 (UPI) -- Human rights advocates Monday called on Libya to investigate the death of a terror suspect in Tripoli that authorities have said was a case of suicide.
Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri, also known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, was found dead in his cell in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, Human Rights Watch said in a news release Monday. Al-Libi had previously been held in secret U.S. and Egyptian detention facilities from late 2001 to at least 2005, HRW said.
Citing a declassified CIA document and a U.S. Senate report, HRW said al-Libi was tortured in Egypt before providing what turned out to be false information about a link between al-Qaida and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The information was used in former Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations making the case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The death of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi means that the world will never hear his account of the brutal torture he experienced," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said. "So now it is up to Libya and the United States to reveal the full story of what they know, including its impact on his mental health."
Al-Libi was turned over from U.S. custody to Libya in late 2005 or early 2006 and was detained at Abu Salim prison, where officials said he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, the release said.
HRW called on Libya to disclose what it knows about al-Libi's treatment in U.S. and Egyptian custody.
