about the matter with the Arab League before the government's overthrow in 2011. Abu Salim prison massacre In 2006, Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry into unconfirmed deaths that occurred in Abu Salim maximum security prison during the 1996 riot. In 2009, Human Rights Watch believes that 1,270 prisoners were killed. However, Human Rights Watch states that they were unable to independently verify the allegations. The claims cited by Human Rights Watch are based on the testimony of a single former inmate, Hussein Al Shafa’i, who stated that he did not witness a prisoner being killed: "I could not see the dead prisoners who were shot..." The figure of 1200 killed was arrived at by Al Shafa’i allegedly calculating the number of meals he prepared when he was working in the prison's kitchen. At the same time, Al Shafa'i stated "I was asked by the prison guards to wash the watches that were taken from the bodies of the dead prisoners..." Al Shafa’i lives in the United States, where he applied for asylum, Hussein al-Shafa'i said he entered Abu Salim from 1988 to 2000 on political charges. The Libyan Government rejected the allegations about Abu Salim. In May 2005, the Internal Security Agency head of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya told Human Rights Watch that the prisoners captured some guards and stole weapons from the prison cache. The prisoners and guards died as security personnel tried to restore order, and the government opened an investigation on the order of the Minister of Justice. The Libyan official stated that more than 400 prisoners escaped Abu Salim in four separate break-outs prior to and after the incident: in July 1995, December 1995, June 1996 and July 2001. Among the escapees were men who then fought with Islamist militant groups in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. In 2009, the Libyan government stated that the killings took place amid confrontation between the government and rebels from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and that some 200 guards were killed as well. In August 2009, several were granted amnesty by the government. Those released included 45 members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), most of whom had been in prison since the mid-1990s after being sentenced in unfair trials for an attempt to overthrow then-jamahiriya leader Muammar Gaddafi. The releases came after the group renounced violence in August 2009. Authorities at Abu Salim