Amnesty report claims Libyan militias torturing alleged Gaddafi supporters

New York, Feb.17 (ANI): Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has warned that Libyan militia are torturing alleged supporters of former dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi at various camps across the country.

Though the armed groups were heralded as heroes when Gaddafi was toppled, they are now "largely out of control," the Los Angeles Times quotes the Amnesty report, as saying.

It claimed that scores of people have been killed, thousands have been tortured and homes were looted and burned as militias carried out revenge attacks against alleged Gaddafi supporters.

Amnesty International also found that militias seized and detained people without legal justification, torturing them behind bars using electric shock, whips and metal chains.

The Times has witnessed rebels taking "justice" into their own hands, locking suspected Gaddafi loyalists in underground tunnels.

The Libyan transitional government had told the militias to hand in their weapons and clear out in December, but the order was ignored.

Amnesty International wrote that the new government "appears to have neither the authority nor the political will to rein in the militias." (ANI)