Video shows Saadi Gaddafi being 'tortured'

Saadi Gaddafi, the third son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has appeared in a video being tortured by prison guards.

The undated footage, posted on the online news website Clearnews on 2 August 2015, shows guards and officials at Hadba prison in Tripoli apparently ill-treating detainees.

Gaddafi, who was commander of Libya's Special Forces in 2011 and fled abroad during his country's revolution, has been in pretrial detention since authorities in Niger extradited him to Libya on 6 March 2014.

Gaddafi, who is blindfolded, is beaten on his feet with a plastic pipe causing him to scream with pain.

The nine minute clip has prompted calls for Tripoli's general prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those responsible if ill-treatment has taken place.

"The graphic video that seems to show prisoners being beaten raises serious concerns about the methods used to interrogate al-Saadi Gaddafi and other detainees at al-Hadba prison,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.

"The Tripoli authorities need to urgently establish exactly what did occur, put in place measures to protect all detainees from abuse, and hold anyone responsible for that kind of treatment to account," Stork added.

During the footage, that has not been independently verified, Gaddafi, who is blindfolded, is beaten on his feet with a plastic pipe causing him to scream with pain. He is also made to listen to the screams of other unidentified detainees apparently being beaten, and watch them being hit.

Gaddafi pleads for "rest" and promises to cooperate at one point. There is no lawyer or legal representative visible.

The video’s release comes a week after his elder brother Saif al-Islam was tried in absentia and given the death sentence by a court in Tripoli.

Other former Gaddafi regime officials sentenced to die by firing squad included former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi and ex-prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi.