A gunbattle erupted Wednesday near the beach house of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Saadi, in central Tripoli, Agence France Presse correspondents reported.

Thick smoke billowed from near the house as rival militias, using heavy machineguns, clashed in the mostly business district not far from luxurious hotels like Corinthia Bab al-Africa and the yet-to-open J W Mariott.

Libya's ruling National Transitional Council on Monday rejected the resignation of its number two, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, who had stepped down after protests against him, a member of the council told Agence France Presse.

"The NTC in its meeting examined the resignation of its deputy and rejected it," Intisar al-Akili said of the decision which was taken during an NTC meeting in Tripoli.

Former pro-Gadhafi fighter Milad Mohammed Youssef lifts his shirt to reveal scars from what he says are cigarette burns and chain beatings, claims his jailer denies happened at his prison.

Youssef, a prison inmate in the western city of Misrata, says he has been held in his small cell at the army-run facility since October 28, five weeks after being captured.

Libya's ruling National Transitional Council said it adopted on Saturday a new electoral law on the basis of which the North African country will form its first constituent assembly in June.

The law, announced on the NTC's Facebook page, scraps a draft proposal that would have reserved 10 percent of seats on the 200-member General National Congress for women, in a move criticized by women's and rights groups.

Dozens of Libyans protested Saturday against Defense Minister Osama Juili's visit to an ex-bastion of Moammar Gadhafi, saying it showed support from the nation's new rulers to the slain dictator's diehards.

"Don't trade with the blood of martyrs for the sake of elections!" shouted angry protesters demonstrating in Tripoli against Juili's visit on Wednesday to Bani Walid after deadly clashes there killed seven people.

At least 15 Somali migrants were killed and 40 left missing after their boat capsized off the coast of Libya this week, the Somali ambassador to Tripoli told AFP on Saturday.

"Fifteen bodies, including one child and 12 women, were recovered off the coast of Misrata after their boat sank," ambassador Abdelghami Wais said, adding the bodies were found Wednesday on the shore of the western port city.

Lebanon obtained conflicting reports that Imam Moussa al-Sadr was alive during the 2011 military operation in Libya, while others said that he was alive until 1994, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

Informed sources told the newspaper that Sadr was alive in Libya until 1994 and after that “no trace of him remained.”

Libyan's regular army and array of militias have been torturing loyalists of slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi, several of whom have been killed in custody, human rights groups charged on Thursday.

Amnesty International said that despite promises, Libya's new rulers have made "no progress to stop the use of torture", as Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in the third-largest city Misrata over similar claims.

NATO has no intention of launching new air operations in Libya despite deadly clashes taking place in a former bastion of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the alliance chief said Thursday.

Fighting erupted in the oasis town of Bani Walid earlier this week, three months after NATO ended its air war in Libya and declared it had accomplished its mission to protect the civilian population.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour held talks on Thursday with Libyan judges Mahmoud al-Yasir and Abdul Latif Qaddour on the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr and his two colleagues.

Libya is probing the mysterious disappearance Sadr who went missing in Tripoli 33 years ago.