TZTA Tepmplate

Advertise here

Advertise here

Home
News
- Amharic
- English
  - Canadian
  - World
  - Ethiopian
Community
Blogs
Archive
About us
Contact us

Ethiopian News	Advertisement
Ethiopia: Terrorism Law Undercuts Free Speech Promptly Charge or Release Detained Journalists Human Rights Watch \| July 25, 2011 Woubshet Taye (left) and Reeyot Alemu behind bars as terrorists (Ethiomedia) NEW YORK – The Ethiopian government should stop using a restrictive and vague counterterrorism law to repress free speech and due process rights, Human Rights Watch said today. An Ethiopian court ruled the week of July 17, 2011, that under this law, two Ethiopian journalists – already held for over a month without being charged or given access to counsel – will remain imprisoned for another 28 days. Woubshet Taye of the Awramba Times and Reeyot Alemu of Feteh newspaper have been detained without charge since June 19 and 21 respectively. On June 29, the government publicly accused them, along with two members of an opposition party, the Ethiopian National Democratic party, and five people it did not identify, of conspiracy to commit terrorism. “The Ethiopian government should not rely on an overly broad anti-terrorism law to silence independent reporting in Ethiopia,” said Rona Peligal, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch. “It should either bring credible charges against the two journalists or quickly release them. ”The journalists are being held at the infamous Federal Police Crime Investigation Department, known as Maekelawi prison, in Addis Ababa, where torture is frequent. Their detention without access to legal counsel heightens concerns about their treatment, Human Rights Watch said. The restrictive Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, adopted in 2009, makes the publication of statements “likely to be understood as encouraging terrorist acts” punishable by imprisonment for 10 to 20 years. The overly broad description leaves journalists in jeopardy of being accused of encouraging terrorism. The law also violates due process rights guaranteed under Ethiopian law and international law. Human Rights Watch has called previously for its amendment in line with those standards. The Ethiopian constitution requires the government to bring a person before a court within 48 hours of being detained and to inform that person of the charges against him or her. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Ethiopia ratified in 1993, provides that anyone arrested for a criminal offense shall be brought before a judicial authority and promptly charged. However, the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation permits the police to request additional investigation periods of 28 days each from a court before filing charges, for up to a maximum of four months. While the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation does not explicitly deny access to legal counsel, the authorities have frequently denied this right to people held under its provisions. Human Rights Watch is aware of at least 11 people in pretrial detention under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and 14 people who were charged in June 2011 under this law with belonging to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a banned rebel armed group. “Every detainee in Ethiopia should be granted immediate access to counsel and to their families,” Peligal said. “Accusations under the terrorism law should never mean the denial of basic human rights.” For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Ethiopia, please visit: www.hrw.en/africa/ethiopia	Journalist Eskinder Nega and Opposition leader Andualem Aragie arrested Ethiomedia \| September 14, 2011 ADDIS ABABA - Security men on Wednesday arrested prominent Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega and opposition party leader Andualem Aragie. They were both taken to Makelawi Prison in handcuffs at different times in the afternoon, witnessed said. Eskinder and Andualem were earlier around 8:30 am seen conversing over coffee with two other UDJ members at a cafeteria near the opposition party's headquarters, a UDJ press release reported. Acclaimed as a widely read journalist whose weekly columns appear on Ethiomedia.com on Fridays, Eskinder has been writing articles critical of the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi whose high-handed rule has often been denounced by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others. Andualem, a young, charismatic opposition leader whose oratorical skills shot him to prominence in the run-up to the overwhelmingly-rigged 2010 elections, had served nearly two years in prison following the ill-fated 2005 elections in which security forces killed at least 193 protesters. Eskinder Nega, whose courage and unbending spirit is the envy of every opposition leader who would like to beat brutal thugs hands down, was also a prison inmate during the 2005 nationwide crackdown that led to the shutting down of the independent press, including three newspapers that Eskinder used to edit. He was held in solitary confinement for several months, and bears a dislocated shoulder due to torture. He is the husband of award-winning journalist Serkalem Fassil. The government has targetted prominent journalists and opposition leaders as a pre-emptive strike at what observers say fears of public unrest due to an economic crisis compounded by an inflation that has soared over 40 percent in recent weeks. Earlier last week, police arrested Debebe Eshetu, a veteran actor and opposition activist, and charged him under a new anti-terror law for having alleged ties to Ginbot Sebat, an opposition group outlawed in Ethiopia. Two opposition party officials and two journalists were also arrested under the anti-terror law, which human rights groups say is a smokescreen the government uses to crush dissent. A tortured choice in famine: Which child lives By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED - Associated Press \| August 14, 2011 DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — Wardo Mohamud Yusuf walked for two weeks with her 1-year-old daughter on her back and her 4-year-old son at her side to flee Somalia's drought and famine. When the boy collapsed near the end of the journey, she poured some of the little water she had on his head to cool him, but he was unconscious and could not drink. She asked other families traveling with them for help, but none stopped, fearful for their own survival. Then the 29-year-old mother had to make a choice that no parent should have to make. "Finally, I decided to leave him behind to his God on the road," Yusuf said days later in an interview at a teeming refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. "I am sure that he was alive, and that is my heartbreak." Parents fleeing the devastating famine on foot — sometimes with as many as seven children in tow — are having to make unimaginably cruel choices: Which children have the best chance to survive when food and water run low? Who should be left behind? "I have never faced such a dilemma in my life," Yusuf told The Associated Press. "Now I'm reliving the pain of abandoning my child. I wake up at night to think about him. I feel terrified whenever I see a son of his age." Dr. John Kivelenge, a mental health officer for the International Rescue Committee at Dadaab emphasizes the extreme duress Somali mothers and fathers are facing. "It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. They can't sit down and wait to die together," he said. "But after a month, they will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, which means they will have flashbacks and nightmares. "The picture of the children they abandoned behind will come back to them and haunt them," he said. "They will also have poor sleep and social problems." The United States estimates that more than 29,000 Somali children under age 5 have died in the famine in the last three months. An unknown number too weak to walk farther have been abandoned on the sandy trek to help after food and water supplies ran out. Faduma Sakow Abdullahi, a 29-year-old widow, attempted the journey to Dadaab with her baby and other children ages 5, 4, 3 and 2. A day before she reached the refugee camp, her 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son wouldn't wake up after a brief rest. Abdullahi said she did not want to "waste" the little water she had in a 5-liter container on dying children when the little ones needed it. Nor did she want to wait for too long until her other children started dying, so she stood up and walked away a few paces — then returned in the hopes the youngsters were in fact alive. After several back-and-forth walks, she finally left her two children under a tree, unsure whether they could be resuscitated. More than 12 million people in East Africa are in need of food aid because of the severe drought. The U.N. says 2.8 million of those are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance, including more than 450,000 in Somalia's famine zones. Ahmed Jafar Nur, a 50-year-old father of seven, was traveling with his 14-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter to Kenya. But after only two days of walking, they ran out of water. By the third day, they could only sit beneath a big tree — thirsty, hungry and exhausted. "The two children could not walk on anymore. Then instead of us all dying there, I was forced to leave them to their fate, especially after I thought of the other five children and their mother I left behind at home. I said to myself, 'Save your life for the interest of the five others. These two have their God,'" he said. "That was the worst thing I experienced in my life. It was a heartbreaking experience to abandon my children who are part of myself," he said. "For almost three months, my mind was not stable. Their images were in front of me." Miraculously, the two teenagers were saved by nomads, and they have since made their way back to their mother in Somalia. But Nur said he can't afford to bring the rest of his family to Kenya because it cost too much. "I was a farmer and had no education that can help me now get jobs. We depend on handouts," he said. "My mind is preoccupied with them: Will they all die, including their mother, or will some survive? That is what I always ask myself." When Faqid Nur Elmi's 3-year-old son died of hunger and thirst on the road from Somalia, his mother could only surround his body with small dried branches to serve as a grave. She couldn't stop to mourn — there were five other children to think about. "Where will I get the energy to dig up a grave for him?" she asked. "I was just thinking of how I can save the rest of the children. The God who gave me him in the first place took him away. So I didn't worry much about the late son. Others' lives were at risk." ___	Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound CNN \| August 29, 2011 Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Moammar Gadhafi told his people he lived modestly during his nearly 42-year rule over Libya, often sleeping in a Bedouin tent. Even if that was true for the leader, it certainly wasn't for his sons. At a seaside compound in western Tripoli, the Gadhafi boys enjoyed a decadent lifestyle that his people could only dream about, while perpetrating unspeakable horrors on the staff that served their every whim. CNN visited the seaside homes Sunday. The first house we entered was apparently the "party" beach condo with an oversized door that led into sleek, modern, black-and-white rooms. It had been ransacked by the rebels, but still it was spectacular, with panoramic ocean views and plenty of evidence of the hedonism for which Hannibal Gadhafi -- one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons -- is famous. Discarded bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label Scotch and Laurent Perrier pink champagne cases littered the floor. Much of the electronic equipment had been plundered, but instruction manuals remained for high end Harman/Kardon stereo components. Cabinets designed to hold two huge TV screens could still be seen. The bedroom held a circular bed, while the in-suite bathroom was complete with sunken Jacuzzi tub lined with plastic white flowers. Outside, a hot tub, a bar and a barbecue area adjoined the private beach. Another villa contained a white baby grand piano and more expensive stereo equipment. Next door was a huge swimming pool and diving complex, a gym, a steam room and a sauna faced in white marble. In other house. We came upon rebels furtively dividing up a huge stash of alcohol. They seemed edgy and tense -- this is the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and alcohol was supposedly banned under the Gadhafi regime. We filmed them quixotically studying the labels of Cristal champagne and fine St. Emilion Bordeaux, apparently not realizing each bottle is worth hundreds of dollars. As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she'd been burnt by Hannibal's wife, Aline. I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shweyga Mullah. At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork. Even though the burns were inflicted three months ago, she was clearly still in considerable pain. But she told us her story calmly. She'd been the nanny to Hannibal's little son and daughter. The 30-year-old came to Libya from her native Ethiopia a year ago. At first things seemed OK, but then six months into her employment she said she was burned by Aline. Three months later the same thing happened again, this time much more seriously. In soft tones, she explained how Aline lost her temper when her daughter wouldn't stop crying and Mullah refused to beat the child. "She took me to a bathroom. She tied my hands behind my back, and tied my feet. She taped my mouth, and she started pouring the boiling water on my head like this," she said, imitating the vessel of scalding hot water being poured over her head. She peeled back the garment draped carefully over her body. Her chest, torso and legs are all mottled with scars -- some old, some still red, raw and weeping. As she spoke, clear liquid oozed from one nasty open wound on her head. After one attack, "There were maggots coming out of my head, because she had hidden me, and no one had seen me," Mullah said. Eventually, a guard found her and took her to a hospital, where she received some treatment. But when Aline Gadhafi found out about the kind actions of her co-worker, he was threatened with imprisonment, if he dared to help her again. "When she did all this to me, for three days, she wouldn't let me sleep,"Mullah said. "I stood outside in the cold, with no food. She would say to staff, 'If anyone gives her food, I'll do the same to you.' I had no water -- nothing." Her colleague, a man from Bangladesh who didn't want to give his name, says he was also regularly beaten and slashed with knives. He corroborated Mullah's account and says the family's dogs were treated considerably better than the staff. Mullah was forced to watch as the dogs ate and she was left to go hungry, he said. It seems to sum up how the workers at the beachside complex were viewed by the Gadhafi family. "I worked a whole year they didn't give me one penny," Mullah said. "Now I want to go to the hospital. I have no money. I have nothing." She starts sobbing gently -- an utterly pitiful scene.
Copyright © 2011 TZTA Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Ethiopian News

Ethiopia: Terrorism Law Undercuts Free Speech Promptly Charge or Release Detained Journalists Human Rights Watch | July 25, 2011

Woubshet Taye (left) and Reeyot Alemu behind bars as terrorists (Ethiomedia)

NEW YORK – The Ethiopian government should stop using a restrictive and vague counterterrorism law to repress free speech and due process rights, Human Rights Watch said today. An Ethiopian court ruled the week of July 17, 2011, that under this law, two Ethiopian journalists – already held for over a month without being charged or given access to counsel – will remain imprisoned for another 28 days.

Woubshet Taye of the Awramba Times and Reeyot Alemu of Feteh newspaper have been detained without charge since June 19 and 21 respectively. On June 29, the government publicly accused them, along with two members of an opposition party, the Ethiopian National Democratic party, and five people it did not identify, of conspiracy to commit terrorism.

“The Ethiopian government should not rely on an overly broad anti-terrorism law to silence independent reporting in Ethiopia,” said Rona Peligal, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch. “It should either bring credible charges against the two journalists or quickly release them. ”The journalists are being held at the infamous Federal Police Crime Investigation Department, known as Maekelawi prison, in Addis Ababa, where torture is frequent. Their detention without access to legal counsel heightens concerns about their treatment, Human Rights Watch said.

The restrictive Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, adopted in 2009, makes the publication of statements “likely to be understood as encouraging terrorist acts” punishable by imprisonment for 10 to 20 years. The overly broad description leaves journalists in jeopardy of being accused of encouraging terrorism.

The law also violates due process rights guaranteed under Ethiopian law and international law. Human Rights Watch has called previously for its amendment in line with those standards.

The Ethiopian constitution requires the government to bring a person before a court within 48 hours of being detained and to inform that person of the charges against him or her. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Ethiopia ratified in 1993, provides that anyone arrested for a criminal offense shall be brought before a judicial authority and promptly charged.

However, the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation permits the police to request additional investigation periods of 28 days each from a court before filing charges, for up to a maximum of four months. While the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation does not explicitly deny access to legal counsel, the authorities have frequently denied this right to people held under its provisions.

Human Rights Watch is aware of at least 11 people in pretrial detention under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and 14 people who were charged in June 2011 under this law with belonging to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a banned rebel armed group.

“Every detainee in Ethiopia should be granted immediate access to counsel and to their families,” Peligal said. “Accusations under the terrorism law should never mean the denial of basic human rights.”
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Ethiopia, please visit: www.hrw.en/africa/ethiopia

Journalist Eskinder Nega and Opposition leader Andualem Aragie arrested
Ethiomedia | September 14, 2011

ADDIS ABABA - Security men on Wednesday arrested prominent Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega and opposition party leader Andualem Aragie.
They were both taken to Makelawi Prison in handcuffs at different times in the afternoon, witnessed said.
Eskinder and Andualem were earlier around 8:30 am seen conversing over coffee with two other UDJ members at a cafeteria near the opposition party's headquarters, a UDJ press release reported.

Acclaimed as a widely read journalist whose weekly columns appear on Ethiomedia.com on Fridays, Eskinder has been writing articles critical of the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi whose high-handed rule has often been denounced by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others.
Andualem, a young, charismatic opposition leader whose oratorical skills shot him to prominence in the run-up to the overwhelmingly-rigged 2010 elections, had served nearly two years in prison following the ill-fated 2005 elections in which security forces killed at least 193 protesters.
Eskinder Nega, whose courage and unbending spirit is the envy of every opposition leader who would like to beat brutal thugs hands down, was also a prison inmate during the 2005 nationwide crackdown that led to the shutting down of the independent press, including three newspapers that Eskinder used to edit. He was held in solitary confinement for several months, and bears a dislocated shoulder due to torture. He is the husband of award-winning journalist Serkalem Fassil.
The government has targetted prominent journalists and opposition leaders as a pre-emptive strike at what observers say fears of public unrest due to an economic crisis compounded by an inflation that has soared over 40 percent in recent weeks.
Earlier last week, police arrested Debebe Eshetu, a veteran actor and opposition activist, and charged him under a new anti-terror law for having alleged ties to Ginbot Sebat, an opposition group outlawed in Ethiopia. Two opposition party officials and two journalists were also arrested under the anti-terror law, which human rights groups say is a smokescreen the government uses to crush dissent.

A tortured choice in famine: Which child lives By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED - Associated Press | August 14, 2011

DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — Wardo Mohamud Yusuf walked for two weeks with her 1-year-old daughter on her back and her 4-year-old son at her side to flee Somalia's drought and famine. When the boy collapsed near the end of the journey, she poured some of the little water she had on his head to cool him, but he was unconscious and could not drink.

She asked other families traveling with them for help, but none stopped, fearful for their own survival.

Then the 29-year-old mother had to make a choice that no parent should have to make.

"Finally, I decided to leave him behind to his God on the road," Yusuf said days later in an interview at a teeming refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. "I am sure that he was alive, and that is my heartbreak."

Parents fleeing the devastating famine on foot — sometimes with as many as seven children in tow — are having to make unimaginably cruel choices: Which children have the best chance to survive when food and water run low? Who should be left behind?

"I have never faced such a dilemma in my life," Yusuf told The Associated Press. "Now I'm reliving the pain of abandoning my child. I wake up at night to think about him. I feel terrified whenever I see a son of his age."

Dr. John Kivelenge, a mental health officer for the International Rescue Committee at Dadaab emphasizes the extreme duress Somali mothers and fathers are facing.

"It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. They can't sit down and wait to die together," he said. "But after a month, they will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, which means they will have flashbacks and nightmares.

"The picture of the children they abandoned behind will come back to them and haunt them," he said. "They will also have poor sleep and social problems."

The United States estimates that more than 29,000 Somali children under age 5 have died in the famine in the last three months. An unknown number too weak to walk farther have been abandoned on the sandy trek to help after food and water supplies ran out.

Faduma Sakow Abdullahi, a 29-year-old widow, attempted the journey to Dadaab with her baby and other children ages 5, 4, 3 and 2. A day before she reached the refugee camp, her 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son wouldn't wake up after a brief rest.

Abdullahi said she did not want to "waste" the little water she had in a 5-liter container on dying children when the little ones needed it.

Nor did she want to wait for too long until her other children started dying, so she stood up and walked away a few paces — then returned in the hopes the youngsters were in fact alive.

After several back-and-forth walks, she finally left her two children under a tree, unsure whether they could be resuscitated.

More than 12 million people in East Africa are in need of food aid because of the severe drought. The U.N. says 2.8 million of those are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance, including more than 450,000 in Somalia's famine zones.

Ahmed Jafar Nur, a 50-year-old father of seven, was traveling with his 14-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter to Kenya. But after only two days of walking, they ran out of water. By the third day, they could only sit beneath a big tree — thirsty, hungry and exhausted.

"The two children could not walk on anymore. Then instead of us all dying there, I was forced to leave them to their fate, especially after I thought of the other five children and their mother I left behind at home. I said to myself, 'Save your life for the interest of the five others. These two have their God,'" he said.

"That was the worst thing I experienced in my life. It was a heartbreaking experience to abandon my children who are part of myself," he said. "For almost three months, my mind was not stable. Their images were in front of me."

Miraculously, the two teenagers were saved by nomads, and they have since made their way back to their mother in Somalia. But Nur said he can't afford to bring the rest of his family to Kenya because it cost too much.

"I was a farmer and had no education that can help me now get jobs. We depend on handouts," he said. "My mind is preoccupied with them: Will they all die, including their mother, or will some survive? That is what I always ask myself."

When Faqid Nur Elmi's 3-year-old son died of hunger and thirst on the road from Somalia, his mother could only surround his body with small dried branches to serve as a grave. She couldn't stop to mourn — there were five other children to think about.

"Where will I get the energy to dig up a grave for him?" she asked. "I was just thinking of how I can save the rest of the children. The God who gave me him in the first place took him away. So I didn't worry much about the late son. Others' lives were at risk."

___

Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound

CNN | August 29, 2011

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Moammar Gadhafi told his people he lived modestly during his nearly 42-year rule over Libya, often sleeping in a Bedouin tent.

Even if that was true for the leader, it certainly wasn't for his sons.

At a seaside compound in western Tripoli, the Gadhafi boys enjoyed a decadent lifestyle that his people could only dream about, while perpetrating unspeakable horrors on the staff that served their every whim.

CNN visited the seaside homes Sunday.

The first house we entered was apparently the "party" beach condo with an oversized door that led into sleek, modern, black-and-white rooms. It had been ransacked by the rebels, but still it was spectacular, with panoramic ocean views and plenty of evidence of the hedonism for which Hannibal Gadhafi -- one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons -- is famous.

Discarded bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label Scotch and Laurent Perrier pink champagne cases littered the floor. Much of the electronic equipment had been plundered, but instruction manuals remained for high end Harman/Kardon stereo components. Cabinets designed to hold two huge TV screens could still be seen.

The bedroom held a circular bed, while the in-suite bathroom was complete with sunken Jacuzzi tub lined with plastic white flowers. Outside, a hot tub, a bar and a barbecue area adjoined the private beach.

Another villa contained a white baby grand piano and more expensive stereo equipment. Next door was a huge swimming pool and diving complex, a gym, a steam room and a sauna faced in white marble. In other house.

We came upon rebels furtively dividing up a huge stash of alcohol. They seemed edgy and tense -- this is the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and alcohol was supposedly banned under the Gadhafi regime.

We filmed them quixotically studying the labels of Cristal champagne and fine St. Emilion Bordeaux, apparently not realizing each bottle is worth hundreds of dollars.

As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she'd been burnt by Hannibal's wife, Aline.

I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shweyga Mullah.

At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork.

Even though the burns were inflicted three months ago, she was clearly still in considerable pain. But she told us her story calmly.

She'd been the nanny to Hannibal's little son and daughter.

The 30-year-old came to Libya from her native Ethiopia a year ago. At first things seemed OK, but then six months into her employment she said she was burned by Aline.

Three months later the same thing happened again, this time much more seriously.

In soft tones, she explained how Aline lost her temper when her daughter wouldn't stop crying and Mullah refused to beat the child.

"She took me to a bathroom. She tied my hands behind my back, and tied my feet. She taped my mouth, and she started pouring the boiling water on my head like this," she said, imitating the vessel of scalding hot water being poured over her head.

She peeled back the garment draped carefully over her body. Her chest, torso and legs are all mottled with scars -- some old, some still red, raw and weeping. As she spoke, clear liquid oozed from one nasty open wound on her head.

After one attack, "There were maggots coming out of my head, because she had hidden me, and no one had seen me," Mullah said.

Eventually, a guard found her and took her to a hospital, where she received some treatment.

But when Aline Gadhafi found out about the kind actions of her co-worker, he was threatened with imprisonment, if he dared to help her again.

"When she did all this to me, for three days, she wouldn't let me sleep,"Mullah said. "I stood outside in the cold, with no food. She would say to staff, 'If anyone gives her food, I'll do the same to you.' I had no water -- nothing."

Her colleague, a man from Bangladesh who didn't want to give his name, says he was also regularly beaten and slashed with knives. He corroborated Mullah's account and says the family's dogs were treated considerably better than the staff.

Mullah was forced to watch as the dogs ate and she was left to go hungry, he said.

It seems to sum up how the workers at the beachside complex were viewed by the Gadhafi family.

"I worked a whole year they didn't give me one penny," Mullah said. "Now I want to go to the hospital. I have no money. I have nothing."

She starts sobbing gently -- an utterly pitiful scene.