A Libyan court on Wednesday sentenced to death by firing squad 45 militiamen out of 128 condemned for killing demonstrators in Tripoli during the 2011 uprising against former president Muammar Gaddafi, the justice ministry said.
The incident was known as Abu Salim district, which occurred in Tripoli on August 21, 2011, on the backdrop of the Libyan revolution that ousted the regime of Gaddafi. This case caused a hustle and bustle in the Libyan public opinion throughout the past seven years. The ministry said in a statement that 54 other defendants were sentenced to five years in jail and 22 were acquitted.
The issued verdicts coincided with dozens of women blocking the road with burning tires as a protest against the lack of liquidity at local banks in addition to the deterioration of living conditions. Furious protesters repeated slogans against the governor of the Libyan central bank, the national accord government, the parliaments and the high council of state. These protests resulted from the fact that dozens of citizens, women among them, stood for long in front of local banks in hope of withdrawing money.
Meanwhile, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) accused the armed militias in Tripoli for using force to impede tank trucks and threatening a director of a local oil firm. General Directorate of Central Security (north Tripoli branch), started opening Al-Shat Road in Tripoli only one day after the armed militias blocking off the road and preventing the vehicles from entering the east of the city in a protest against abducting a number of Souq al Jum'aa region residents by battalion of Bashir Khalafallah.
NOC, supporting the Government of National Accord headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, said in a statement Wednesday that armed men localized in Aziziyah used force on Tuesday to hinder the passage of tanker trucks. The corporation denounced earlier the fact that Director of Brega Oil Marketing Company Emad Bin Koura was threatened by armed militias in Tripoli in order to reconsider a decision he issued to dissolve the "Distribution of Fuel and Gas Follow-up Office".
