ZAWIYAH, Libya — In the second-floor office of a burned-out police station here, the photographs strewn across the floor spun out the stories of the unlucky prisoners who fell into the custody of the brutal government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi . 
 
 Some depicted corpses bearing the marks of torture. One showed scars down the back of a man dressed only in his underwear, another a naked man face down under a sheet with his hands bound. The faces of the dead bore expressions of horror. Other pictures showed puddles of blood, a table of jars, bottles and powders and, in one, a long saw. 
 
 In a labyrinthine basement, workers were clearing out burned books and files. One room contained a two-liter bottle of gin. Gesturing into another room that was kept dark, a worker mimicked a gun with his hands and murmured “Qaddafi,” suggesting it was an execution chamber. 
 
 A spokesman in Tripoli for the Qaddafi government said Wednesday that the photographs depicted crime victims or crime scenes, not scenes of torture. But the marks and bindings on some of the bodies appeared to depict captives, and the origin of the photographs could not be verified. 
 
 Journalists discovered the photographs and records on an official trip to this devastated city, where Qaddafi forces battled rebels for nearly a week to retake control. They were the latest reminder of the long record of arbitrary violence against civilians that now overshadows the government’s efforts to broker an end to the international airstrikes and domestic rebellion threatening Colonel Qaddafi’s four decades in power. 
 
 As Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, promised in a television interview to usher in a new era of constitutional democracy in which his father would be a mere figurehead “like the queen of England,” the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court escalated international pressure on the government by declaring that it had deliberately ordered the killing of civilians in a bid to hold back the democratic revolution sweeping the region. 
 
 “We have evidence that after the Tunisia and Egypt conflicts, people in the regime were planning how to control demonstrations in Libya,” the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told Reuters. “The shootings of civilians was a predetermined plan.” 
 
 In the rebel-held city of Misrata in western Libya and on the eastern front with the rebels around the oil town of Brega, Qaddafi forces continued to hammer rebels with rockets, artillery and mortars, as rebel leaders expressed exasperation at the limits of NATO’s support. 
 
 In Brussels, Brig. Gen. Mark van Uhm of NATO said Tuesday that Western airstrikes had destroyed about 30 percent of Colonel Qaddafi’s military power. 
 
 But Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, the head of the rebel army, lashed out at his Western allies during a news conference in Benghazi, accusing NATO of tardiness and indecision. “What is NATO doing?” he asked. “Civilians are dying every day. They use the excuse of collateral damage.” 
 
 He charged that NATO was enforcing the United Nations-sanctioned no-fly zone too equally, barring the rebels from providing cover for their troops with the few warplanes he said they had repaired. “They said, ‘No, don’t use your planes,’ ” he said. 
 
 General Younes also charged that Qaddafi forces had attacked oil installations in southeastern Libya, “to deprive the Libyan people from their right of selling the oil.” He said the damage was “not significant.” 
 
 Nor was there was any sign Tuesday of the air power that two weeks ago sent the loyalist forces reeling toward the Qaddafi stronghold of Surt. 
 
 Instead, they hammered rebels once again along the coastal road around the strategic oil town of Brega, more than 100 miles to the east. 
 
 On Tuesday the Qaddafi forces reversed some minor rebel gains with rocket attacks and pushed vehicle patrols northeast from their positions. They forced the rebels to withdraw nearly to Ajdabiya, to be safely out of the superior range of the loyalist forces’ weapons. 
 
 Resting on dunes and knolls, soldiers peered down the road toward Brega nervously. They said that it appeared that the Qaddafi forces, less pressured now by airstrikes, had managed to resupply their forward troops, and were emboldened and dangerous. 
 
 The rebels had pulled back so quickly under fire that their casualties on Tuesday were light, said Dr. Habib Multadi, who was organizing the evacuation of wounded from the front. But as cargo trucks moved more ammunition forward at dusk, their force seemed stuck. 
 
 In the rebel capital, Benghazi, a military spokesman said he was not ashamed to admit that the rebel forces needed help. ||||| THE HAGUE The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Tuesday Libyan authorities had decided they were ready to kill unarmed protestors opposed to Muammar Gaddafi's rule even before unrest spread from Tunisia and Egypt. 
 
 ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the plan, which the government of Gaddafi began developing in January, authorized the use of tear gas and, if necessary, killings. 
 
 His comments mark the first time since Libya was referred to The Hague-based institution in February that a senior international legal official has said evidence exists the Gaddafi government planned to kill its own people, although Western political leaders have previously alluded to this. 
 
 "We have evidence that after the Tunisia and Egypt conflicts in January, people in the regime were planning how to control demonstrations inside Libya," Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters. 
 
 "They were hiding that from people outside and they were planning how to manage the crowds ... the evidence we have is that the shooting of civilians was a pre-determined plan." 
 
 "The planning at the beginning was to use tear gas and (if that failed to work)..., shooting," he added. 
 
 The U.N. Security Council last month authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians under threat of attack in Libya, opening the way for air strikes on government military targets, a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. 
 
 Gaddafi, his sons and key aides are under investigation by Moreno-Ocampo over the violent crackdown on protestors, which Britain says has cost at least 1,000 lives, and Moreno-Ocampo has said he will request arrest warrants in the coming weeks. 
 
 The prosecutor said defection from the Gaddafi camp would be viewed as a mitigating circumstance in the investigation but it was up to the U.N. Security Council to decide on any political deal with the Gaddafi authorities. 
 
 The U.N. Security Council referred Libya to the court on February 26 and can suspend ICC investigations for 12 months at a time. 
 
 Moreno-Ocampo said he was keen to speak with Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected to London last month, saying he opposed attacks by Gaddafi's forces on civilians. 
 
 Investigators were assessing who was most responsible for attacks on civilians, but Moreno-Ocampo said that it was too early to say whether Koussa would be granted immunity or what impact his defection might have on the ICC investigation. 
 
 "The fact is that when we warned different people, including Moussa Koussa, that the troops were committing crimes, if someone cannot control them, defecting is a valid option and that is what Moussa Koussa did. We will see what responsibility he had," he said. 
 
 "We would like to see what Moussa Koussa knows. But the fact that he defected is a factor we will consider seriously." 
 
 ICC investigators say at least 565 unarmed civilians were killed in Libya between February 15 and February 28 but Moreno-Ocampo also raised concern about abductions, torture and killing of people in Tripoli considered disloyal to the Gaddafi regime. 
 
 Although high-profile defections have undermined Gaddafi, diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled even as Western forces continue a campaign of air strikes. 
 
 Some Western officials say threat of an appearance at The Hague-based court is an obstacle to persuading Gaddafi and his entourage to go into exile, and other top aides to defect. 
 
 But Moreno-Ocampo said such considerations were for others: "We have judicial responsibilities. We collect evidence and present to the judges. Political responsibilities are in the hands of the Security Council." 
 
 According to some legal observers, the threat of an arrest warrant could be used as leverage in any political negotiations to end the violence. 
 
 The Security Council could suspend the ICC investigation to allow Gaddafi to leave power, or rule out an international intervention to arrest the veteran leader. 
 
 That last option could allow Gaddafi to travel to any of the 80 states that have yet to sign up to the ICC, leaving the way open to him departing into exile, though Moreno-Ocampo said it was not his place to negotiate such matters. 
 
 "The political responsibilities are in the hands of the Security Council ... any political decision will be taken by the Security Council, not by me," Moreno-Ocampo said.
– In pictures uncovered by journalists in Zawiyah, the dead prisoners of Moammar Gadhafi's forces are shown naked or clad only in underwear, hands bound, backs scarred. Other pictures depict ominous scenes: Puddles of blood, a saw. The pictures were discovered in a burned-out police station, where one worker pointed to a dark room and implied it was used to execute prisoners. After nearly a week of fighting, Gadhafi's forces retook Zawiyah from the rebels, leaving the city devastated, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has ratcheted up pressure on Libya's government, claiming it ordered the killing of civilians in order to keep a lid on the unrest rapidly moving across the region. "We have evidence that after the Tunisia and Egypt conflicts, people in the regime were planning how to control demonstrations in Libya,” the ICC prosecutor told Reuters. “The shootings of civilians was a predetermined plan.” Gadhafi's forces are still hammering rebels in Misrata and Brega as rebel leaders pushed NATO to give them more support.