Aid group sees signs of torture in Libya

MISURATA, Libya, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Libyan detainees received medical care and were returned to interrogation centers where they had allegedly been tortured, an aid group said.

International aid group Doctors Without Borders pulled out of the Libyan city of Misurata last week because of concerns about detainee treatment.

Christopher Stokes, the group's general director, told German news magazine Der Spiegel that volunteers treated more than 100 detainees who had injuries from apparent torture.

"We have encountered bone fractures as a result of torture and we received patients who had been electrically shocked," he said.

Libya has shown signs of fracturing since a transitional government took control over the country last year. Stokes said his organization issued complaints to a military council about the abusive treatment but found no signs the atrocities have ended.

He stressed that blame shouldn't fall on the interim Transitional National Council, however. He said the detention center officials were "very supportive," as were those in the TNC.

"The problem is those responsible for the interrogation centers," he said. "They do what they want."

Former Libyan dissidents are suing former British intelligence officials, claiming MI6 figures were complicit in their torture during the Moammar Gadhafi era, The Guardian newspaper in London reports.