Libya promises payouts over wrongful imprisonment

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Libya's government announced it will pay compensation to some people it had wrongfully imprisoned, the latest step in an effort to draw a line under a history of human rights abuses.

The categories of ex-prisoner who will be eligible for compensation payments include people who were detained without trial and prisoners who were convicted but later acquitted, the Justice Ministry said in a statement on its Internet site.

A campaigner with Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement of compensation but said nearly 300 people are still being wrongfully held in a prison run by Libya's internal security agency and should be released immediately.

The Justice Ministry statement gave no details on which former inmates would receive the compensation, how many were eligible or how much money they would get.

But Oea, an influential newspaper with ties to a reformist son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, reported that the prisoners to receive compensation were ex-members of militant organisation the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The newspaper, citing what it called informed sources, said the compensation would range between 1,000 (495 pounds) and 2,000 Libyan dinars for each month of imprisonment.

"I think it's an interesting sign," said Heba Morayef, a researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. But she said her group's focus was on the 280 people it believed were being wrongfully held in the Abu Salim jail, near Tripoli.

"Every last one of the 280 has to be released and it's not for the internal security agency to ... detain people based on its own assessment," she told Reuters.

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Since Libya emerged from decades of sanctions and international isolation, its leaders have promised to clean up their human rights record. But some campaigners say progress has been slow and patchy.

The justice ministry statement said that officials would start paying out the compensation from Sunday.

"The decision applies to individuals who have been released following the expiry of their sentence, acquitted after being detained and those who spent a period in detention without being brought to trial," the statement said.

Senior Libyans, led by Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, have acknowledged that large numbers of people have in the past been jailed wrongfully, and have been taking steps to release those still in detention.

About 200 prisoners, including former Islamist militants, were released in March from Abu Salim jail after LIFG leaders renounced their violent campaign to overthrow Gaddafi. Saif al-Islam helped to broker their release.

Abu Salim prison was the scene of violent clashes in June 1996 when more than 1,000 prisoners were shot dead.

Human Rights Watch says the internal security agency still uses the prison to detain hundreds of people who were given unfair trials, or kept in prison after finishing their sentences or being acquitted by the courts.

(Additional reporting by Christian Lowe; Writing by Hamid Ould Ahmed)