The first gallows erected by the Gaddafi regime in Benghazi were for the execution of Omar Daboub and Mohammed al-Tayeb bin Saud on April 7, 1976.
Today, Monday (April 7, 2025), marks the 49th anniversary of the mass hanging incident, in which the former regime executed Libyan citizens on the pretext of engaging in anti-regime activities. This incident was accompanied by raids on Libyan universities by security forces and members of the Revolutionary Committees, and a campaign of arrests targeting numerous students, before they were hanged on specially erected platforms for execution on university campuses.
Gaddafi threatened the students in a speech he delivered that day, saying: “Those who were defaming the university and writing insulting phrases on its interior are enemies of the revolution and must be eliminated. I have begun the battle, and by God Almighty, I will not retreat until blood flows in the streets alongside the enemies of the revolution.”
Eyewitnesses Describe Brutal Hanging Method
Former political prisoner and Libyan writer Jumaa Bouklib wrote in an article in Al-Wasat newspaper: “On that day, the Libyan National Student Movement, both young men and women, stood steadfastly and honorably, defending the independence of the university campus, its right to establish a student union to represent it and defend its rights, and its right to a homeland that had been hijacked and violated by the military.”
Eyewitnesses describe the hanging method as brutal and unprecedented, citing the experiences of two of its victims, Omar Ali Daboub and Muhammad al-Tayeb bin Saud, on April 7, 1976. While their hands were tied, their legs were free. Those forced to attend witnessed one of the executioners pick up an electric cable and tie the legs of those dangling to it. Thousands watched after the executions were broadcast on Libyan television.
The other victims were Omar Al-Sadiq Al-Warfalli (known as Omar Al-Makhzoumi) and the martyr Ahmed Fouad Fathallah (an Egyptian national), who were strangled in the Benghazi seaport.
The scene was repeated in 1983 and 1984
On April 7, 1983, the hanging scene was repeated. This time, the victims were Mohammed Muhadhdab Ahfaf, a student at the Faculty of Engineering in Tripoli, Omar Khaled, Nasser Mohammed Siris, Ali Ahmed Awadallah, Badie’ Badr, Abdullah Abu Al-Qasim Al-Maslati, Saleh Al-Zarouk Al-Nawwal, and Hassan Ahmed Al-Kurdi. They were all hanged inside Tripoli Prison.
The following year, 1984, Rashid Mansour Kabar and Hafez al-Madani al-Warfalli were executed by hanging on the University of Tripoli campus. Mustafa Arhuma al-Nuwairi was also hanged on the same day at the University of Benghazi, pursuant to rulings by a special military court.
Other executions began on Saturday, April 2, 1977, in several camps in Benghazi and Tobruk, targeting a group of officers accused of participating in a coup led by Major Omar al-Muhaishi in 1975.
Throughout the period from April 1977 until the fall of the regime in 2011, the Revolutionary Committees celebrated April 7 under the name “The Student Revolution.” On February 3, 1980, they announced the commencement of the physical liquidation of political opponents at home and abroad, declaring: “Physical liquidation is the final stage in the dialectic of the revolutionary struggle to resolve it once and for all.”
On April 11, 1980, the Revolutionary Committees assassinated Muhammad Mustafa Ramadan as he was leaving Friday prayers in London. Physical liquidation operations continued throughout April, with the Revolutionary Committees assassinating Abdul Latif al-Muntasir in Beirut on April 21, 1980, Mahmoud Abdul Salam Nafi’ in London on April 25, 1980, and Jibril Abdul Raziq al-Dinali in Germany on April 6, 1985.
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