A helicopter carrying 16 people was shot down and crashed into the sea near Libya's capital Tuesday with at least nine passengers, including a senior militiaman, confirmed dead, a military official said.

The aircraft was hit by gunfire shortly before noon and went down near the Al-Maya area just west of Tripoli, said Colonel Mustafa Sharkasi, a spokesman for the air force of Libya's Tripoli-based government.

Human Rights Watch said Monday it had been able to meet slain Libyan dictator Moamer Gadhafi's son Saadi in a Tripoli prison, where he said his rights were being violated.

"He said lawyers were not present during any of the interrogation sessions, where, he alleged, prosecution officials had intimidated and threatened him and other witnesses," the New York-based rights group reported.

The bodies of at least 43 people thought to be migrants washed up on Libyan beaches east of the capital Tripoli at the weekend, the Red Crescent said on Sunday.

Twenty-nine bodies were found Saturday on beaches around the port of Zliten, while another 14 were discovered on Sunday on a beach near the port of Khoms.

Hillary Clinton stood her ground firmly during 11 hours of questioning over the 2012 Benghazi attacks, parrying Republican blows at a high-stakes congressional hearing that could impact her bid for the White House.

Partisan fireworks exploded repeatedly between Republican and Democrat members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi during Thursday's marathon grilling that at times took on the character of an interrogation.

Hillary Clinton on Thursday defended her role in responding to deadly attacks in Libya in 2012, as the White House hopeful took the stand for a marathon grilling by hostile Republicans.

In highly-anticipated testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the Democratic presidential frontrunner repeated that she took ultimate responsibility for the tragedy that left four Americans dead including ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Western and Arab states issued a joint declaration Monday urging rival sides in Libya to accept U.N. proposals for a power-sharing government "immediately" to end rampant instability in the country.

The statement was published jointly by the foreign ministers of Algeria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Qatar, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States as well as the EU foreign policy chief.

Libya's rival parliament and government have rejected a U.N.-proposed peace deal installing a national unity government, with one lawmaker saying Monday it would deepen rifts in the North African nation.

"This government is rejected... it will deepen differences between the Libyan people," General National Congress member Mahmud Abdel Aziz told AFP.

A former investigator with the congressional panel probing the deadly 2012 attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya is accusing Republicans of targeting presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Major Bradley Podliska is preparing to file a federal lawsuit against the House Select Committee on Benghazi next month, saying he was fired in part because he opposed the panel's decision to focus primarily on Clinton's role while she headed the U.S. State Department.

World leaders urged Libya's warring parties Friday to sign a proposed peace deal installing a national unity government, after a cool response from some lawmakers in the country's rival parliaments.

Libya has had two administrations since August last year when a militia alliance that includes Islamists overran the capital, forcing the internationally recognized government to take refuge in the east.

Libyan authorities said almost 300 migrants, a third of them from Senegal, were arrested Thursday as they prepared to board boats for the Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

"After having received information on their meeting place, we managed to apprehend 289 migrants preparing to cross the Mediterranean headed for Europe," said Taher el-Naas, a senior official in Libya's anti-illegal immigration unit.