However, the prison population increased again after mass arrests in the following years in successive waves, beginning with December 1988 to March 1989, followed by hundreds suspected of participating in a coup attempt in October 1993.

Government negotiators, including Abdullah Senussi, then met with prisoner representatives who asked for improved conditions, care for the sick and trials.

[11] The captured Mansour Dhao, a prominent figure in the Gaddafi regime, again confirmed the massacre in a BBC interview.

[13] An opposition group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, said that the bodies were removed by refrigerator trucks and later transferred to trains.

In May 2005, the head of the Internal Security Agency, identified as "Khaled", told Human Rights Watch that the prisoners captured some guards and stole weapons.

[17] In 2007, a group of 94 families filed a lawsuit at the Benghazi North District Court to try to find out the fate of their missing relatives.

[18] Lawyer Abdul Hafiz Ghoga also represented the families of people killed in the massacre and negotiated with Gaddafi about compensations.

[19] When the Arab Spring occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, Fathi Terbil was among the first arrested on February 15 in an effort to stave off a revolution.

Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi's intelligence chief suspected by many to have been involved in the 1996 massacre, reportedly tried to ask Terbil to make the protests stop.

[11] During the uprising Ghoga became speaker of the National Transitional Council, in April 2011 vice president, and held this position until January 2012.

[21] Khalid al-Sherif, a military spokesman for the NTC, said that the grave was located based on information from captured former regime officials.

He stated: "We have discovered the truth about what the Libyan people have been waiting for many years, and it is the bodies and remains of the Abu Salim massacre.

[23] In 2011, when the National Transitional Council invited journalists from CNN and other news outlets it found only what appeared to be animal bones at that site and announced further investigations.

[28][24] [27] According to an inmate who spoke to Amnesty International, living conditions in the prison were primitive, with a lack of sanitation facilities, medical care, and food.

[29] As of 2012, a number of guards and senior Gaddafi-era officials were detained and were under investigation by the military prosecutor for the 1996 prison massacre.

[9] On May 2, 2021 the Supreme Court of Libya ruled that the Abu Salim prison massacre was a genocide, and the Libyan government must address the matter via transitional justice.

The Libyan NGO Human Rights Solidarity said in the context of the ruling that the release of suspected massacre perpetrators "does not achieve national reconciliation, but rather is consolidating a misguided culture that encourages impunity".