Al-Senussi defence challenges evidence and recounts Abu Salim events
LIBYA – Defence lawyer Ahmed Al-Nashad, counsel for former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senussi, said the defence team holds what he described as conclusive evidence clearing his client of criminal responsibility in the Abu Salim prison events case and intends to present it in closing arguments, criticising what he cast as shortcomings in the investigations and evidence-gathering.
Why Al-Senussi did not join the video hearing
Al-Nashad, in a video interview with Libya Al-Ahrar, which broadcasts from Turkey — followed and summarised by Al-Marsad — said that Al-Senussi had been ready to appear at the latest hearing from custody and that Mitiga link equipment was ready, but a personal excuse arose for a Tripoli Criminal Court technician after a death, preventing him from arriving and completing the connection.
He said the disruption stemmed from court arrangements and was, in his words, the first of its kind in a long time apart from an earlier session when internet service failed, while Al-Senussi and Mansour Dhao had joined other sessions via closed circuit.
Defence objections to the investigation and charges
Al-Nashad said the investigations from the start of the case had, in his view, been marked by shortcomings and errors that affect the soundness of confessions and charges and how far a judge can rely on them.
He described the prosecution’s evidence as “weaker than a spider’s web”, said naming his client among the defendants was incorrect, and predicted the pleadings would include what he called surprises for the public.
The lawyer’s account of two Abu Salim incidents
Al-Nashad distinguished two incidents separated in time: the first a prison inmates’ mutiny in which two guards were killed, and the second what he said was the reaction that led to the victims’ deaths.
He said the prison had belonged to the military police and followed a military chain of command, and that Al-Senussi attended as an official after the mutiny. He cited prosecution witness Hussein Al-Shafi’s account that Al-Senussi asked the prison commander whether any prisoner had got out and, told that none had, said: “As long as no one got out, stop shooting.”
He also pointed to recordings of Sheikh Mohamed Busadra that he said clear Al-Senussi of responsibility for that night and highlight his attempt to manage the situation during the mutiny, claiming his client was not present on the second day of shooting when the crime occurred and that no one saw him that day.
Refusal of orders and proximity to the former regime
Asked whether officials could have acted without referring to Al-Senussi given his closeness to the head of the regime at the time, Al-Nashad said some prisoners’ testimonies speak of his client refusing certain instructions and orders and trying to persuade the other side to urge inmates to show restraint, citing an account that he threw down his phone in dismay at the instructions.
Case 630 and other charges the defence rejects
He said case No. 630 includes 26 charges against Al-Senussi, among them facilitating illegal migration and the bombing of the Ridwan petrol station in Benghazi, which he said never exploded, describing those accusations as untrue.
Supreme Court ruling and legality until October 2011
Al-Nashad said that when the Supreme Court heard the appeal before the retrial, it addressed the continued legitimacy and legality of the former state and its employees until 20 October 2011, and that the defendants had been public officials subject to mobilisation and command rules and a duty to obey superiors, according to his reading of the ruling.
He added that, in his view, refusing orders in that framework exposed employees to legal punishment. The programme host put to him that carrying out unlawful orders can constitute crimes that do not erase criminal responsibility, and compared cases of people who broke with the regime and joined the February revolution.
Al-Nashad said his remarks rest on his understanding of the Supreme Court ruling, and that those who defected before 20 October were regarded as “traitors” under the law then in force, with mobilisation and military legislation regulating the conduct of operations in wartime and aggression — legal arguments the lawyer advanced, not new judgments in the case.
Correspondence, earlier acquittals and international court comparisons
Al-Nashad stressed that correspondence and communications from superiors are preserved in the case papers, and cited what he said were earlier acquittals of defendants in 26 cases, some carrying the death penalty, as supporting the importance of these arguments.
Asked about comparisons with domestic trials and the Nuremberg, Tokyo, Bosnia and Rwanda tribunals, which examined defendants’ responsibility despite claims of superior orders, he said the Libyan situation differs in his view from Nuremberg, which he described as a victor’s trial of the vanquished.
He closed by affirming his confidence in the Libyan judiciary and the judges applying the law, recalling that Al-Senussi had previously received a three-year prison sentence under Gaddafi that was later dropped when, according to the lawyer’s account, the reports underpinning the charge proved incorrect.
