It is believed the footage shows the tyrant's third son, Saadi Gaddafi, being hit in the face and on the soles of his feet while blindfolded in a prison in Libya. 

US-based Human Rights Watch says authorities should investigate the alleged abuse of the son of the former dictator and other inmates in a jail in Tripoli. 

The footage has come to light just a week after Saadi's older brother Saif was sentenced to death in a Libyan court.

The undated footage was made available by news website Clearnews and appears to show guards beating Saadi during an interrogation at al-Hadba prison.

Other inmates can be heard in the background crying out in pain while being attacked. The man resembling Saddi is first made to listen to their screams, before his blindfold is removed and he is made to watch the beatings.

At one point he is asked whether he wants to be hit on the soles of his feet or his buttocks, to which he replies: 'What kind of a question is this? My feet.'

Melinda Taylor, an international criminal court defence lawyer for Saadi, told RT: 'It does appear to be Saadi Gaddafi.

'It appears to be criminal treatment in the sense of it being severe physical treatment and also psychological in the sense that he is being forced to listen to other people apparently being tortured.'

In the latter part of the video, the man's feet are restrained in a device and they are repeatedly hit.

According to RT, Libya's state prosecutor has launched an investigation to find out who the guards are in the footage.

Saadi, 41, who had a brief career as a footballer in Italy, is accused of being involved in the disappearance of Libyan star striker and football commentator Bashir al-Riani, who has not been seen since 2006. His family reportedly found his body in a morgue.  

The dictator's son lived a charmed life until his father was deposed in 2011 and killed by rebels as part of the Arab Spring uprising.

After telling his father he wanted to become a footballer when he was a youngster, Colonel Gaddafi ordered that a place was found for him in Libya's top football team.

As the new striker for Tripoli’s Al Ahli football club, Saadi was the only player to have his name on his shirt.

He was later appointed captain of the Libyan national squad, and referees were told under pain of death to award him favourable decisions.

Later Colonel Gaddafi pumped millions into Italian football club Perugia on the condition that Saadi would have a starring role.

But Saadi failed a drugs test after his first game for Perugia in 2003 and was banned. 

A newspaper report of his only match in Italy stated that ‘even at twice his current speed he would still be twice as slow as slow itself’.

Another said he was ‘the worst player to ever appear on a football pitch’.

Outside of football Saadi enjoyed a frenzy of parties, orgies and drug-taking, becoming known as a cocaine user and heavy drinker. 

In February 2011 he is accused of issuing orders for a crackdown on protesters in Libya, which led to the uprising against his father's rule.

Later that year he fled the country, and had been held under house arrest in the Niger capital Niamey. He has been in pretrial detention since authorities in Niger extradited him to Libya in 2014.

Another son of Colonel Gaddafi, Saif Gaddafi, and his hated spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi were sentenced to death in a Tripoli court last month for crimes against the Libyan people.

More than 30 associates of the tyrant were tried for suppressing peaceful protests during the 2011 uprisings which deposed the dictator.

Saif is being held by a former rebel group from the town of Zintan, Libya, which refuses to hand him over to the authorities in Tripoli.

Al-Senussi has previously been linked to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. And in 1999 he was convicted in absentia in France for his role in the bombing of an airliner over Niger ten years earlier. 

However, for ordinary Libyans, his name will always be associated with the 1996 massacre of 1,200 inmates at Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison.

Since the 2011 fall of Colonel Gaddafi, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments and the armed factions that back them fighting for control. Islamist militants have gained ground during the period of lawlessness.

Amal Clooney – the barrister and glamorous wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney – has made an 11th-hour bid to save Saif and al-Senussi. 

Mrs Clooney’s legal chambers represent the pair, and have argued that they should be put on trial in the Hague.

She has played a leading role in the bid for the spy chief to have his case heard by judges from the International Criminal Court – where there is no death penalty. 

On August 1, her London chambers Doughty Street described the Libya trial as a travesty of justice and called on the United Nations to halt the executions. Gaddafi and al-Senussi have been told they will be killed by firing squad.

(dailymail.co.uk)