Gaddafi forces execute patients

Rome - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi stormed hospitals in Tripoli and summarily executed injured anti-regime protesters who were being treated, a report said on Thursday.

Members of the Libyan Revolutionary Committee, the backbone of Gaddafi's regime, "burst in hospitals and killed wounded people who had protested against the regime," said Slimane Bouchuiguir, who leads the Libyan branch of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), cited by Italian news agency MISNA.

"They transported the corpses to make them disappear, perhaps to burn them, because they know that foreign journalists are moving closer," he said of the incidents that took place Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Doctors who objected were threatened," he added.

The account reached Bouchuiguir in Switzerland, where the rights group is based, because independent organisations are banned in Libya under Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

Into the tenth day of revolts that rights groups claim to have killed at least 600 people, Gaddafi appeared to be losing his grip on Thursday in front of an emboldened opposition and as Western nations mulled sanctions.