Human Rights Watch said that Omar Brebesh, a career diplomat who was cultural attache and then ambassador to France between 2004 to 2008, was brought in for routine questioning in Tripoli over his work for the former regime.
His body turned up at a hospital in Zintan, the town two hours' drive to the south-west that was a hub of last year's revolution, beaten, bruised and with some of its toenails removed.
The allegation will be particularly alarming because Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former dictator, is also being held in Zintan. Although the two international organisations allowed to visit him – Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross – both reported he was being well treated, the interim government has refused to disclose details of the process by which he will be put on trial.
The Zintan Brigade, one of the revolution's most powerful militias, has clashed with rivals in Tripoli. Most recently, members fought for control of the former beach compound of Saadi Gaddafi, another of the dictator's sons, with members of the Misurata Brigade, once seen as a Zintan ally in Libya's complex patchwork of regional rivalries.
It was a smaller Zintan-based outfit, called the Al-Shohada Ashura Militia, that demanded Mr Brebesh come in for questioning on January 19, his son, Ziad, told HRW. He was still working as a lawyer in the foreign ministry at the time.
