Where Killings Are Common, Death of Activist Stuns Benghazi

                     Where Killings Are Common, Death of Activist Stuns Benghazi
                                                  The new york time


TRIPOLI, Libya — Salwa Bugaighis, a Libyan lawyer and civil rights activist, stood on the roof of her home in Benghazi on Wednesday and watched as armed groups fought gun battles on the edges of town.

The fighting was “intense,” she wrote on Facebook. “Heavy smoke near the cement factory.” She seemed unconcerned about her own safety, but instead worried that the thundering clashes might discourage her fellow residents from voting during a critical national election to select a new parliament.

“My people, I beg of you, there are only three hours left,” she wrote at about 5:45 p.m., before the polls closed. She posted pictures of a group of fighters downstairs from her house, and at about 8:45 p.m., she told her sister during a telephone call that her husband was going outside to talk to the men.

Within minutes, Ms. Bugaighis, 50, was dead, having been stabbed, shot and left bleeding in her living room. Her husband, Essam al-Ghariani, has not been heard from since.
The death of Salwa Bugaighis has stunned a nation where assassinations, kidnappings and explosions have intruded on life with a dulling regularity. Credit Abdullah Doma/Agence France-Presse

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