Freed Doctor Recounts Libyan Torture

In the wake of last week's jubilant homecoming of the Bulgarian nurses released from a Libyan prison, it's their Palestinian cellmate who’s first to go public with his story. Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz’s joy at release after 8 years is “turning into a hunger for justice,” he says in an interview with the New York Times and a graphically detailed first-person account in der Spiegel. 

Hazouz, who was raised in Libya, tells the story from his baffling detainment through the bizarre and obscene torture that led to his eventual confession to trumped-up charges of infecting hundreds of children with HIV. Locked up with attack dogs, shocked and dragged by his genitals, he said he was forced to witness the rape of the nurses, and threatened with the rape of his sisters. (More Libya stories.)