LONDON — Libyan authorities released 130 political prisoners on Thursday, including 83 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Libyan activist said. Ashour Shamis, who is based in London, told Reuters the prisoners were freed in the capital Tripoli. Two of them had been sentenced to death and 10 to life imprisonment in a trial in 2001.Libyan Justice Minister Ali Omar Abu Bakr confirmed the releases, but denied they were political prisoners. “The detainees set free today numbered 130,” he told reporters in Libya. “But we want to say Libya did not have and does not have political prisoners in its jails.”
Membership of a political party constitutes treason in the oil-exporting country.
In Cairo, EgyptÂ’s opposition leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef welcomed the move as the opening of a new chapter in reforms and the spreading of liberties. Small batches of political detainees have been released in recent years on behalf of the Gaddafi Charity Foundation, a group run by the Libyan leaderÂ’s son Saif Al Islam which aims to improve LibyaÂ’s human rights record and image abroad.
London-based rights group Amnesty International in April 2005 published a catalogue of what it called Libya’s human rights abuses and urged Gaddafi to follow through on promises to establish a “normal criminal law procedure”. Amnesty became the first international human rights group to visit Libya in 15 years when its research team met Gaddafi and other officials in March 2005 amid Tripoli’s efforts to rejoin the international community after three decades of isolation.