Many of Libya’s makeshift prisons are run by local militia groups scarred by the eight-month war and angry at the prisoners, who include Gaddafi fighters and supporters. The new government that is to be named in the next few weeks — following a planneddeclaration of Libya’s liberation on Sunday — will have to deal with both the militias and a crippled national justice system.

So far, the overwhelmed central government has not even decided whether Gaddafi-era laws can be used to prosecute his forces.

“What we have been through is something unusual. We don’t have a court that applies for that,” said Ali Sweti, a lawyer who works with the revolutionary government in Misurata, 150 miles east of Tripoli.