The family of the Minister of Defense of the former Government of National Accord, Al-Mahdi Al-Barghathi, questioned the details presented by Khalifa Haftar’s forces regarding the death of Al-Barghathi’s son Ibrahim and others who were accompanying him, calling on the Attorney General to investigate what happened.
The family said, in a joint statement issued with the families of some of Al-Barghathi’s companions, that they received news a few days ago of the death of a number of their loved ones, and some of Al-Barghathi’s friends who came to visit him in Benghazi, indicating that they had received a request from the local authorities in Benghazi to receive the bodies.
Al-Barghathi’s family said that, based on their own sources and a video clip published by Internal Security in Benghazi, Ibrahim (the son of the former Defense Minister) was arrested while he was alive and in good health, and they were surprised to be informed of his death without knowing the real causes of death, saying the bodies were decomposed when they had received them.
The family referred to what was announced in a press conference by the Minister of Health in the parallel government, Othman Abdeljalil, regarding the death of nine of Al-Barghathi’s companions, when he said that they had buried all those killed during the attack on Al-Barghathi’s house, so the family wondered, “Were these people among the group that was buried and then taken out? Did they execute them later and neglect them until the bodies were decomposed?”
The families of Al-Barghathi and his companions placed the legal and social responsibility for what happened on the Minister of Health, the Military Prosecutor in the Eastern Region, Faraj Al-Sosae, the Head of the Internal Security Apparatus in the Eastern Region, Osama Al-Dressi, and the Minister of Interior, Essam Bouzriba, demanding that the Minister of Health reveal the truth about the causes and circumstances of their deaths and the disclosure of forensic reports.
The family said that they had submitted an official complaint to the Attorney General, asking him to investigate the course of what happened, and urged the concerned authorities to also investigate this incident with the aim of reaching justice.