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Warning: This site contains images and graphic descriptions of extreme violence and/or its effects. It's not as bad as it could be, but is meant to be shocking. Readers should be 18+ or a mature 17 or so. There is also some foul language occasionally, and potential for general upsetting of comforting conventional wisdom. Please view with discretion.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre: The Dead Outside the Shed

Original Posting, November 15, 2011
Deleted for complete re-write, April 29
re-write complete May 3, 2012, last edits May 7

<< The Tripoli Massacres
     << The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre

Those Not Anonymized by Fire
In addition to the 45 or so people charred to cinders within it, there were at least 32 bodies discovered immediately around the site of the Yarmouk massacre shed. These were either in or just outside the prison yard or across the street. There are eleven of these that have been photographed and can be placed and described, as they are below.

It’s not entirely certain they were killed by the same people, but the rebels are clear in blaming these killings as well on Gaddafi loyalists only. Considering the information on racist rebel brutality up to this point, this is unlikely. These other bodies were left in the open but primarily un-burnt, and so had surface features like skin (mostly black African) and clothing (partially military) left intact.

These bodies were widely noted by journalists, counted in varying sub-sets, but given real thought and scrutiny by very few. Clemens Höges, describing the scene in the walled compound right around the central shed, for Der Spiegel English, ventured some worthwhile observations:
An alternative explanation, however, would be that the rebels massacred their prisoners on Friday evening after the battle and tried to pin the crime on Gadhafi's forces. But on Saturday evening, one of the bodies lying outside was swarming with thousands of tiny maggots, which would be impossible if the man had only been killed the day before.
Some of the bodies (#4, #7) have visible maggots nearby in some images, and this does suggest death at least a day prior to the acknowledged rebel conquest. But there are, in fact, signs that the base was taken some days before the rebels acknowledge taking it, a subject discussed elsewhere (best here). For this article we will consider it an open possibility and see what the evidence suggests. As Höges further noted:
There are a number of inconsistencies in the explanations about the Khellet Ferjan massacre. The four dead men outside the warehouse whose corpses were not burned appear to have been powerfully built, dark-skinned men, as far as can be judged after days in the Libyan heat. It is possible that they were soldiers who wanted to desert or did not want to be involved in the massacre. Ali Boukhatwa confirmed this version of events and also said that the soldiers had been tortured.
Boukhatwa, an all-knowing local from a few hundred feet away, is sure that the black soldiers defected, were tortured and then executed, by Gaddafi villains, and left un-buried and un-burnt before the racist rebel hordes ever screeched in there. That is one allegedly well-informed local. But not quite as well-informed or connected as “Dr. Salem Rajab,” who pops up frequently in the exploration below.

 The chattering so-called witnesses aside, here is whatwe can see about the eleven exterior victims, listed in order seen/left-right, etc. A map for reference:

The Three Removed Early
These three victims were seen in situ in a video posted by Batruna, from late on the 26th, filmed about 8 pm by the dimming light of a recently set sun. These were removed from the scene about 10:00 AM on the 27th, laid on a flatbed truck and driven away, as seen in a sequence of three photographs taken by Seamus Murphy, VII images. [1 - 2 - 3]

These were among the first news photos of the area, and the lighting, with moderate shadow length, suggests mid-morning, say 9:30 or 10:00 AM. The truck they're laid on was then driven away, and within an hour (about 11am) Stuart Ramsay of Sky News would be in the same exacts pot the first photo was shot from for the first news video, speaking to Dr. Salem al Farjani, pretending to be a witness Dr. Salem Rajab (he keeps popping up below). (See an image here of the green "Gaddafi loyalist" graffiti added between takes, exactly after Murphy's one snapshot).

Clearly Sky News didn’t capture these bodies, and no one later did. Only to our knowledge that rebel video and those early photos.

Exterior Victim #1: The Man in the Truck
This victim is a mid-toned male, a bit overweight and perhaps middle-aged, in bloodied underclothes, with what seems to be torture to the arms, a slit throat, and at one point a charred face. His brutalized body was seen being loaded from a police transport truck (paddy wagon) to flatbed truck in the Murphy photos, after the other two bodies were already placed. As the one visible victim with clear signs of burning, he stands out; his face is quite gruesome to behold there, crusted charcoal black with orange peeking through, what looks like blue-tinged remnants of melted eyeballs. His shoulders look blistered and cracked, as if heated but shielded from flame. A burning tire “necklace” seems like a good explanation for all of this.
Small view for those who don't need the
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His body was also visible splayed out alone inside the one truck the night of the 26th, about 14 hours before that removal. He’s laid flat, face-up, amidst a pool of blood and an overturned bowl. The dim view and low resolution make it hard to be certain, but the skin of his face and shoulder seem smooth and normal colored then, not burnt at all. It would seem someone set that fire in the hours before Murphy’s views. Rebel forces, not Gaddafi loyalists, were in charge at that time.

This victim’s arms show signs of torture in both views, bruised, bloodied, perhaps misshapen, an apparent slice in the right forearm. The first view shows much blood on his chest and the shoulder straps of his shirt, centered around the neck area with darkness of a wound or of clotted blood visible there. A slit throat, looking like an Islamist execution method, might help explain the fire, set around his neck to melt and char the skin, and obscure that clue. It didn’t work; Murphy’s photo seems to show a serious slice across the victim’s lower throat. (see bottom, middle).

They might also have wanted to hide the face of someone they didn’t want seen as one of the victims. That effort seems to have fared better. Using fire to erase clues is supposed to be the idea that led to all those bodies being charred blank inside the massacre shed? But whoever victim #1 was and whoever killed him, it seems someone on the rebel side tried to use fire to destroy the evidence of it.


Exterior Victim #2: The Crawler

This victim is on the left among the two first bodies laid across the truck bed. Situated face-up, we see he could almost pass for a rebel fighter – bearded, stocky, in clothing both civilian and yet potentially militant. In the August 26 video, it appears as if he died crawling out of the massacre shed, only making it a few yards before expiring with his head resting against his forearm.

When we see his underside in the morning, it shows massive bleeding of the abdominal area, and unclear issue of the left side, including chest. He was possibly just shot, or perhaps subjected to some broad trauma like being crushed beneath the tires of a heavy vehicle. He might have died from Pneumothorax from internal injuries, explaining the sudden death from suffocation. He might have been dropped in the smoldering shed as he was dying, just to get a crawler for dramatic effect.

Despite being smeared in dirt from crawling or dragging, his anguished face is relatively clear and would likely be recognizable to family, who may or may not be willing to speak up.

Exterior Victim #3: The Runner

This is a mid-tone male, apparently shot while running from the shed area to the gate, judging by the sandal flung off his foot nearby. Dressed in a white shalwar kameez outfit and sprawled out face-down, his body is uncovered except apparently the head and shoulders. There’s no visible blood in the rebel video, but it just pans over him from a distance. Seamus Murphy’s photo shows widespread injuries and bleeding beneath the clothes, especially the left side, from chest to knee. His head is never visible.

Journalist Janine DiGiovani wrote after her visit “There are places in the world, like Srebrenica in Bosnia, like Hama in Syria, where the ghosts of death linger long after the event. … the field is scattered with objects the prisoners left behind—a single sandal, perhaps lost while fleeing.” She might refer to this same sandal, and the video confirms her impression, with the one sandal near his bare feet, the other perhaps being the dark shape about six feet away, or perhaps missing.

The Mattress Victims
The next three victims were killed on three mattresses together at the shed’s east end. They're the only bodies covered with blankets in the customary gesture, and that only because they had their own, apparently caught sleeping beneath them. They seem to be wearing bedclothes, and their shoes are removed nearby. DiGiovanni noted “a plastic bag of toiletries hanging on a nail in the wall—but otherwise the place is eerily silent.” This was outside the shed, where soldiers slept, right above a pair of black sneakers, best shown in a high-res photo (allegedly of rebel fighters) by Louafi Larbi.

Military uniforms hang alongside green flags or lay nearby, now partially tossed across their bodies as if to clarify that these were Gaddafi army fighters. Two of them are black men. Our local Salem told French paper Liberation they were in fact soldiers, “who refused to participate in the killing.” Mimicking the scene, as if he had seen it, he continued “and the mercenaries killed them on the spot.”

Perhaps the alleged final conversation was something like this: Officer: “Soldiers, it’s time to kill. You, take this Kalashnikov, you these grenades. You, this other gun, and watch for escapees.” Soldier 1: “Come on, you just woke us up.” Soldier 2: “Yeah, I’m not ready to get up yet. Can you let us lay here just five more minutes?” Officer: “You are refusing? Mercenary, kill them all.” Mindless African slave: (Bang bang, and also torture sounds, order unclear) These three more killed for refusing were heroes, like so many others found in Free Libya from February onwards, left to rot by their rebel beneficiaries.

These are numbered starting from the gate, as Martin Fricker noted for the UK Daily Mirror “the first thing we saw was the corpse of a Gaddafi loyalist, his decomposing remains partially covered by a blanket. Nearby there were two more bodies, one with his hands and feet bound.”

Exterior Victim #4: Outside the Guard House
This first victim you'd see is laid just outside the small shack attached to the massacre shed, face down and hidden beneath an especially colorful floral blanket, at least on the 27th and after. On the night of the 26th, it was a pink one with squares (upper left, Batruna video), still there later under the orange blanket someone felt was warranted. Only this victim’s bare feet are usually visible, but sometimes his right hand, left arm, once his head, and once even his uncovered lower body was seen. All glimpses suggest with near-certainty, by skin color and hair type, this is a black man of African descent.

The Aljwahr Free Media video shows the back of his head, with a likely bullet hole near the top, and his bent left forearm, decaying. The arms position and being off the mattress suggests he may have been face-up at one point, then rolled over on his right side. If so, it was prior to the first known view (upper left). The lower right view of the victim's feet is by Moises Saman, NYT (a black and white version, and an almost identical view by Bryan Denton - thanks Felix for the links). These seem to show injuries on the right foot, but in different spots, so likely an illusion of artifacts. But the uncovered view (lower left, TV1 video (image stitched together for widest/best view possible, around the TV1 logo) reveals he’s dressed only in underwear shorts, and displays with less ambiguity a painful-looking wound at the tender spot behind the right knee.

A massive pool of blood, watered down with rain or whatever, surrounds and soaks the body, its mattress and the ground. The bloody water pooled along the shack’s wall, along with a very swollen right hand, can be seen in an unusual photograph by Szlankó Bálint (right, middle). A swollen hand can suggest prolonged binding, but the wrists aren’t visible.

Bálint’s images were taken on August 28, by the established visual chronology, although mis-labeled as Aug. 29 (the posting date, likely). There’s also a sandal shown and maggots - large-full-grown, ready to pupate maggots. These would be the first-hatched, the pioneers. The vast majority would be smaller and grubbing away in the thousands beneath the blanket. This is a timeline clue the CIWCL cannot read precisely, but an expert could, and it would greatly narrow down the date of killing. I think it was around the 24th, give or take.


Exterior Victim #5: Bound Feet


Just past the alleged guard shack is a covered but open area between it and the massacre shed. There, under a tin roof, the other two mattress victims were laid with their own beds, with #5 the more visible by far. His body is laid face-down and covered with a green blanket so only his lower legs are seen, clad in blue sweatpants or pajama pants. His feet, decaying, swollen, and light-skinned, are tied together with a long stretch of green rope. Yuri Kozyrev took a photo (unused here) captioned “the dead body of a member of Gaddafi's forces lies on a mattress...”

These feet are shown frequently in the news videos, the rest of him not at all. The two amateur videos from the 27th do pan across the other end, giving us a faint glimpse of a head shaded under the blanket. It’s round, possibly bald, and reddish in color, at the moment seen. Clemens Höges had described the scene for Der Spiegel “Next to the warehouse, under a corrugated iron roof, lies a tied-up man who had been shot in the face.” He’s face-down, and always covered, so this is a little puzzling. This victim was killed and/or bled massively across both mattresses. The striped one held his lower body. The checkered bed, where his upper body rotted unseen for days, had that end later collapse in decay, or something to that effect. (upper right)

The rope seems to have its knot moved around over time, and the length was tossed from the position of Aug. 26 (lower left) to the right side in all later images. What do the feet mean? Bound hands tend to suggest execution, as does removal of any footwear. But tied ankles are something that’s rarely seen in any other rebel/alleged-Gaddafi executions.The green color of it is, of course, supposed to suggest Gaddafi loyalists did the tying. It's quite likely from the swelling and abrasion that he was hanged upside down, but not apparently for very long. The mud on his left knee (lower right) suggests he was dragged a bit.

Exterior Victim #6: Facial Trauma 

The third body a bit further in, rolled against the shed’s west wall of corrugated iron, and so less visible. His feet only are often visible, despite being laid face-up and not being fully covered like #5. While outsider cameras glossed over this corpse, two amateur Libyan videos pan right in on it, but in lower quality, showing the only visible face of the three mattress victims. It’s not pretty.

He’s clothed in some baggy bed-clothes, blood-soaked, half-covered with camouflage fatigues, what might be a mid-sized green flag, and a pastel-colored blanket. His skin tone is middling dark, and his face in close-up shows a wide-nostril African face, yellowing with decay for some reason. Clemens Höges had described “tied-up man who had been shot in the face,” as seen by him late on the27th. He does have a hole in his face, perhaps too big for an entry wound. It might be an exit wound after shot in back of head, or another kind of traumatic facial injury centered on the obliterated left eye: surrounding tissue torn open and up, mid-face possibly pushed in, looking collapsed.

However, this body is not bound hand or foot in any images of the time he was there, the left arm hanging free against his mattress, and the right laid across his chest (this and his position suggest he was perhaps face down on the bed before, but was rolled over by someone curious. Höges apparently merged the two bodies into one: #5’s feet and #6’s face (specifying a second mattress victim out of two, "a few steps away.")

While no images show it so, this body might have been bound at one point; the left wrist shows a curious advanced decay suggesting something like the super-tight plastic cuffs we see rebels put on Black men.

Three Peripheral Victims Seen in Situ
These outlying victims suggest action and a slight distance from the shed, and tend to be described by rebel witnesses as fellow escapees from the Gaddafi massacre. It might be silly for the dozens of exclusively light-skinned Arab escapees to claim the camo-clad black men killed at their posts as fellow prisoners and even family. But the following three brutalized black men in civilian clothes might all have been people who ran with them away from the grenades, depending who you ask.


Exterior Victim #7: The Man by the Toppled Wall
This clearly black-skinned man was found laying next to partially toppled low wall on the shed compound’s west end. He’s shown well in a Human Rights Watch photo of sunset on Aug. 27 (upper left here). [with this article] A CBC photo by Derek Stoffel [with article] shows a different angle, while their video doesn’t show him at all (it mentions five bodies and shows four, but does include rebels or locals praying over a body in this spot at 2:09). Aljwahr Free Media shows him fairly close-up (lower right), highlighting the burnt or decaying shoulder, but leaving the details of his face just as mysterious as the others. Maggots are visible on in his inner arm and on the blue tarp that had apparently covered him until someone decided to expose another “Gaddafi crime.”
He might well be an alleged escapee, per one witness anyway. “Omar” spoke to Physicians for Human Rights (their pseudonym), giving the same biographical details as Bashir Mohammed Al-Sedik/Germani, but a different escape story (And Bashir in return has a different story altogether from, but the same body as, a Mohammed Bahir - all explained here). It seems like “Omar” was trying to explain exterior victim #7 with this story to PHR: "Another detainee attempted to escape by climbing through a hole in the warehouse wall, but guards immediately shot and killed him." The rest of the prisoners were beaten in punishment, and later a guard told Omar, whispering through the same hole, that “the guards had left the man who had tried to escape to rot in the sun.” The hole in question is visible here (HRW's photo, upper middle of upper left image), not far from where this body was left rotting in the sun.

Exterior Victim #8: The Man on the Stairs
This black-skinned male of African descent, beefy build, bald-headed, eyes apparently gouged out. He was apparently killed where he lays high on the stairs attached to the compound’s southwest corner. His baggy clothing, possibly bedclothes or a shalwar kameez, is soaked in blood almost uniformly, suggesting multiple shots, stabs, or whatever all over. Apparently of concern at time of his death was a seriously bloody injury somewhere around his groin. The CBC filmed this body on the 28th, but only the lower half (bottom left image), with a baby blanket (not there earlier). This was covering most of his blood, not his body, with some cartoon character giving a thumbs-up sign. Aljwahr Free Media’s video sees him from above, as does CBC’s. A photo by Tyler Hicks from the 27th (upper left) shows a Libyan man looking down at about the same angle. From the desiccation of the hands shown in the CBC video, it would seem he died at least two or three days prior to that - no later than the 26th and probably no earlier than the 24th.

This victim is the clearest alleged escapee of them all, with numerous sources suggesting this history. His body is best-seen in a photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images Europe (dated August 26, but app. from the following day, across the middle/background here and the lower right). The caption there reads in part: “the man is believed to be a detainee that had tried to escape, only to be shot by pro-Gaddafi loyalists." The CBC's explanation is about the same As reporter Susan Ormiston related from the other side of the wall from the victim, at 1:55 in the video:
Some of them tried to escape but failed. It appears a man ran from the building over to this white truck, was shot several times as he tried to scale this wall, and on the other side, he didn't make it.
Höges wrote for Der Spiegel how a body that might be this one “lies on a property directly next to the compound.” As described by witness Rafaii “One (escapee) got over the wall and into the neighboring property, where he was shot.”

None of this shooting in the back as he climbed a wall explains victim #8's eyes. The Berehulak photo shows they have something wrong with them, squeezed in pain and perhaps ruptured, although it’s ill-defined (there’s also a possible large, round hole in his right temple, but this could be a shadow artifact). His head part of that photo is cropped, blown-up, and enhanced, at lower right. Dominique Soguel for AFP had mentioned the three mattress victims laying around as "a fourth eyeless corpse rapidly decomposed in the heat." Mr. Sabri Tabbal, self-described onetime shed prisoner, said of those less fortunate “some of them had their legs crushed, their eyes gouged out, behavior that was …” something he couldn’t even put into words. (video, 5:40) This body seems the most likely match, although no images are 100% clear. There is the huge blood smear near his head. This could be from anything, including his eye sockets, squirting out around some Misrata thug’s thumbs, possibly adding poignancy to the blanket motif.

Exterior Victim #9: The Man in the House
Australian ABC News’ correspondent, following on a late visit on August 29, reported “suddenly, there's a shout from the over the fence. Another body has been found. Quickly [the rebels] walk around to a house overlooking the base.” In a small dirt-floored room, the body was shown, already massively covered with lime powder. He was then removed in a body bag by Red Cross and Red Crescent people, it's said to an unnamed "city hospital" to be identified and reunited with his family. [video]

This body seems solidly built, and possibly wearing the same baggy clothes as the man on the stairs. He lies on his back, limbs out as if pinned down. It might be that the extensive lime across the floor marks where he shed blood, which would be widely. It didn't soak in so well where his body meets the floor, and the surrounding red mud suggests major blood loss all over, again not unlike the stairs victim. Skin color is hard to make out beneath the pile of powder, but the fingers and toes at least tend to suggest that he’s a dark-skinned black man.

His face also shows possible blood from the eyes like the last victim, reddening the lime still (detail, upper right). From a distance, it looks frozen in a wide-mouthed scream, but on a closer look, it seems his face is just caved in. The chin is there, but the space above it, including the nose at least, is just a gaping hole. The powder is poured on thick here, but it just fell into the crater rather than obscuring it. This looks like someone smashed in the face - and very deeply - with whatever was heavy, blunt, and handy.

The house in question is presumably among those just outside the south/west compound wall, and appears vacant and unfinished. It’s not clear which of those houses it might be, but the two westernmost ones seem more equipped with air conditioners and such, leaving the middle house more likely, or possibly the easternmost one (taller and so “overlooking the base.”)

The Christian Science Monitor seemed to have seen him as well (Aug. 30 article) and decided "in an adjacent house lay another body, which likely belonged to an escaped prisoner who had hidden there and died from his wounds." In a Christian Scientist's mind, how long does it usually take for a man with his face crushed deep into his brain to die after fleeing the attack scene? From the above, and from the indoors locale, this is possibly the body that escapee Abdulrahim Ibrahim Bashir was trying to explain to Human Rights Watch. He told them back on the 27th that "he escaped his detention in the warehouse unharmed together with Abdulsalam and Hussain, last name unknown, who were brothers from Zlitan.” The brothers were both wounded in the escape. Bashir's own account said:
After I escaped on August 23, I hid in a house outside the compound for three days, and saw that the guards were still there. [...] Two other detainees were wounded with me. [The rebels] took Abdulsalam from Zlitan to the hospital [after they arrived three days later], but his brother Hussain died in my arms in the house. I left his body inside the house...
What a strange decision no one amongst the brother Abdulsalam (Al-Ashour?) or the rescuers did anything to dissuade him from. A fellow heroic escapee, left to rot like... well, like this guy. He was left like the man who climbed out the hole, but this time it was the rebel/survivors being negligent. Also, there is no loving embrace evident in this corpse's death pose. But as an ridiculously alleged escapee, he shares yet another similarity with the brutalized man on the stairs.


Dozer Deliveries
The last two bodies were dumped in the prison yard mid-day on the 28th after being brought in by earth-mover/bulldozer. One was seen being dumped, the other being scooped up. Neither was in the yard prior, and it’snot clear what having them there added except spice and horror. They and their surroundings are seen best together in a photo by Szlankó Bálint.

Exterior Victim #10: Missing Face
This, again, appears to be a well-built black male, in disarrayed civilian clothes, black shorts and white short torn away, exposing his chest. The flesh of his face and lower right shin stripped away, presumably by feral dogs. Various views of the body laying here were captured by the CBC’s cameras, as well as the Bálint photo. His left leg shows advanced decay (CBC view, upper left), and has likely dead for more at least three days

Before that, body #10 was seen in a Yuri Kozyrev photo (Iranian re-post) dangling from the earth-mover's shovel driving just outside the compound’s southwest corner before entering the prison yard (lower left). There are three pirated Chinese photographs, one stamped as from Life, showing this same body, in greater resolution, being dumped into this precise spot and posture it would later be seen in. In sequence: 1 - 2 - 3 These are apparently shot mid-day on the 28th, by someone with Getty Images (possibly Daniel Berehulak).

The first two let us see his dangling legs and clarify that his left shin is stripped of flesh, and the third image allows us an unusual brief glimpse of his head, enhanced at lower right. The tops and sides seem to be covered with skin, but his face itself seems to be gone. Literally, a skeleton's eye and nose socket remain, clean white bone. It looks strange. Other views like middle left (Bálint) fail to confirm this, but are consistent. His head is turned, and his face seems to just stop – no hint of the nose, cheeks, etc. that there should be.

Another anomaly seen in that middle left image is the apparent long, deep slices all over the upper body. Ineffective predation, torture, or something else? The tissue discoloration around them is also hinted in the Getty dumping photos, perhaps lightening/yellowing with decay along those injury lines.

Exterior Victim #11: White Sneakers
Another body only appearing in the yard on the 28th, was seen on a pile of dirt next to body #10, apparently dumped later and unseen. This was a well-built light-skinned male, app. bald-headed, potentially militant. He wore western civilian clothes, slacks and a t-shirt, and was the only one of the exterior victims clearly shod, in white Adidas sneakers. The back of his head is visible, but not his face, being completely buried in the dirt – perhaps for being eaten away like #10’s. Both exposed arms look unharmed, however. There’s no visible decay, suggesting possibly a later death than the others.

CBC filmed this one laid out, besides Bálint’s photo. What might be the same body was seen earlier in the day by Channel 4, near a refrigerator in a copse of trees (upper right). The location seems to be just outside the compound, across the wall from a tall crane, which was at the south end. Therefore, it’s in the small courtyard (see map). A Hungarian video shows a body there being scooped up by a bulldozer (lower right), and a tree root of some size juts out of the dirt near his head.
An Outside Body that Doesn’t Count
On the morning of the 28th, a wooden shipping crate marked “fragile” appeared just outside the shed’s entrance and stayed there most of the day. Inside was an apparent corpse – a blackened torso partly exposed, but nothing visibly skeletal. It’s mostly wrapped unseen with in a colorful blanket, that almost suggests mattress victim #4. But that body is still laying in the background.

This seems to be one of the less-charred bodies removed from inside the shed. As a reporter for Liberation wrote (rough translation from French):
Six volunteers who had come from the cement plant adjacent to the barracks [are] driving two vehicles, slowing down the sides already lowered. They wear surgical masks, chanting "Allahu" and "Akbar," and begin to collect, hands in rubber gloves, a skull, a chest, a tibia and what they think is a fibula. They wrapped this in a sunflower motif blanket in a coffin which they then lifted together on their shoulders.
Why this corpse was removed early isn’t totally clear. Perhaps it was to illustrate that someone had recognized that as his brother’s charred body, and wanted it home for a proper Islamic burial. Despite the non-skeletal state of some torsos, all faces were reduced to skull, so this is highly unlikely to have really happened. Once it was past the cameras, perhaps they dumped in a ditch they would take the cameras to later…

Others Reported / Totals / Re-Burials / Open Questions
Anthony Loyd wrote in The Australian how “seven bodies - all of males in civilian clothing, killed by gunshots - lay around the yard, while three other corpses lay in nearby alleys.” Alex Thomson of Channel Four News (Aug. 28 footage) said "we can't show any of it, but there are bodies all over this area, many with hands and feet tied prior, apparently, to execution." They did show the locations - a dirt alleyway, and as mentioned a copse of trees with what might be body #11 (see still, upper right in #11's grahphic). From this, it’s quite likely body #10 is also among these three or more, and its dog-eaten face might explain why they wouldn’t show it. Saad Basir, apparently there on the 28th, wrote in his Warscapes account "prisoner transport vehicles were also present at the site, and some contained bodies."

 Just from this we may have little adding to the eleven seen by the 29th, but all-in-all, by that same time, there were several further bodies reported. ABC’s AM program on August 30 reported that twenty bodies total had been found “outside the warehouse,” with a further twelve “across the road.” In a visit apparently on Monday the 29th, their interviewee “Salem Rajab,” no ordinary local, was able to say:
SALEM RAJAB: ... [F]or the process of identification in the future we put them in a special plastic and we put them in a grave here nearby in the corner.
ANNE BARKER: You buried them here? 

SALEM RAJAB: Yes we buried them here.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission, in an advance report of March 2, 2012, failed to mention the 12 but confirmed that “20 bodies lay outside on the ground with gunshot wounds.” The report adds that these corpses “were subsequently collected in body bags and reburied at Sidi Hamed in Gargarish.” [UH, p.70] This might be after being dug up from where Salem said they were first interred, already bagged. A mysterious grave of about 200 bodies was found in Gargarish, along the coast four miles from Tripoli, in early October. It’s unclear if these include the remains put there by rebels after this confusing game of musical graves.

Additional victims from the immediate surrounding areas are less clear, with no known images, and one text description. The Irish Times ran a piece on September 6, a week after Barker reported a total of 32 bodies, per Dr. Salim. The report described another body found that day, across the road “in a government-owned concrete factory.”
A severed hand was found first, followed by the body. The corpse, which had swollen in the heat and was covered in maggots, had been wrapped in a blanket and buried in a pile of sand and rubble. Its fingers and legs showed signs of mutilation. A doctor at the scene named Ahmed Suweidy said the corpse also appeared to have been partly burnt. [IT]
The stench alerted locals, and “police officer Salah Smohem said he believed other bodies may be buried within the factory grounds. “The smell suggests there must be others.....” And if it was government-owned, in late August 2011, that could mean only one thing, right?

With this tortured corpse that suffered fire damage, we’re able to open and close our examination of the un-burnt dead on similar cases with reminders that whoever killed these people were cruel and did like to use fire to desecrate the bodies and complicate investigation.

There would be more discoveries, however vague. For example, two days after the find described above, one further small mass grave was found in an unspecified area of “the Yarmouk neighborhood.” On September 8, Moises Saman for the New York Times photographed rebel exhuming the bodies of “four dead men alleged to have been killed by retreating Qaddafi forces as Tripoli fell to the rebels.” One body is invisible inside a blue-green plastic sheet, the rest still invisible in the ground.

The full number of dead in that area, what was done with their bodies, who they had really belonged to, and who had really killed them all remain unsettled. Always there were bodies missing but surely nearby, an uncertain but sizeable number of them. They filled the gap between the 150 or more prisoners and the 4-10-50 or so visible bodies. Dr. Salem, once again, gave us this break-down:
There are about 65 bodies in all either in the barn or yard," said Dr Salem, a local resident. "But we know for a fact that there were more than 150 prisoners in the barn when the firing started and that only about ten escaped [25-50 now]. What has been done with the other bodies?" 
There’s been talk of the remaining bodies dug up from a Gaddafi mass grave, before being re-buried elsewhere, but this has never been shown happening like it probably would if it had happened. Bodies we have reports or visual confirmation for are scattered, but adding up. Just sticking with these, we have:
About 45 in the shed, 32 un-burnt around and across the road, the severed-hand guy, the four dug up on the 6th, and the 22 at the Yarmouk mosque dump nearby.
45+32+5+22 = 104

And 104 is a death toll curiously close to the number of suspected rebel civilians and/or mutinous soldiers now accepted accepted as killed - 106. A.M. Haleem’s 180 dead, Amr-Dau Algala’s sixty, all the 100-150 reports, brothers and friends and sons of the inconsistent white-skinned likely fakers analyzed here - in the end was the real number simply the total of the mysterious dozens in the shed plus the racist torture-executions described above?

If so, what ever happened to the remainder of the 140-150 grenade-blasted "prisoners" they had an explanation for by 6 am on the 24th?

99 comments:

  1. When I googled for the arabic name of the place "معسكر 32 خلة الفرجان" I saw a pretty lot of arabic, rebel affine websites sharing a copy of the video. It seems it was quite popular there, but it apparently didn't get any attention in the western websites dealing with the war.

    I also found a Sky video that is indicating that "camp al-Furjan" and Yarmouk military base are the same place. Both names apear in the title respectively the insertion at the beginning of the video. The arabic name of camp al-Furjan also appears in an arabic AI report about the charred skeletons. So it seems quite clear that Khalid al-Furjan is the district of Tripoli where camp Yarmouk is located.

    If you haven't located the camp yet please don't waste you time, it is marked in wikimapia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent additions. No problem.I either found it easily already,or figured it'd be easy and didn't bother.I will want to make a map of death pretty soon, however, and mark all the spots now that I'm getting so many down. Might want to map out where in the compound these all are as well...

    I edited the part about the stick,but what do you think of that? Too twisted?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you:)

    No, I don't think it's to twisted. But especially concerning the man besides the stick I prefer to belive he was hung up by feet, that would explain why they are so swollen.

    But both opportunities are as cruel as possible...

    ReplyDelete
  4. The RTarabic video has a close up on the bound feet at about 0.40.

    This BBC Arabic page,last updated 1 September titled Tripoli "Massacre" sites - مواقع "المجازر" في طرابلس (notice the inverted commas around massacre!)has a nice map of the district too. A photo is also there of "مجزرة" في مخزن، كان يستخدم معتقلا مؤقتا، بضاحية صلاح الدين - "massacre" in a warehouse in Salah al-Din, which quotes عبدالرحيم ابراهيم بشير Abdul Al-Rahim Abdul Bashir,your witness no 3, saying 153 did not survive. (is this where 53 bodies came from via some bad translation??)

    Is there a connection between this warehouse's contents and "more than 200 decomposing bodies" found in Abu Salim hospital,(just to the left of the large intersection on the BBC Arabic map)on 26 August 2011, as reported by the BBC's John Simpson?? (video)

    The Gargour area,غرغور where 17 were allegedly shot dead on 21 August, is just north of the large road intersection. Between there and the Bab Al-Aziziya base is a river bed (dried up) -نهر جفت مياه، -
    The BBC page also reports 47 bodies in the Al Furjan warehouse in the Salah Al-Din suburb...The Special Troops Battalion under the command of Khamis Gaddafi's son, used the building as a prison temporarily. Has been described by Human Rights Watch and killing of people as "horrific murder".

    The witnesses told the organization, which deals with the defense of human rights, to prison guards opened fire on the detainees on 23 August / August through the metal roof, and threw bombs in civilian them, sparking a fire.
    (google translation) Sparking a fire...!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Feet tied? This may be the standard treatment for "mercenaries" by the Zliten brigades.

    القبض على المرتزق الذي كان يعذب فى رجل مسن في زليتن
    The arrest of a mercenary who was tortured in an elderly man in Zliten
    Uploaded by 17022011libya on Aug 7, 2011
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIy-AkKS9Bc

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. not related with the shed , but interesting to see @ 0.30 :
      the use of green rope by a rebel gang


      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20u6EY3hcVw&feature=youtu.be

      Delete
  6. For locating the victims on the "Dirt Road" we should first calculate the exact direction of the road, based on the shadows and the known date. If the video is filmed in the afternoon, the direction is approximately southwest to northeast.

    Most roads and tracks in the area are east–west or north–south. The exception is the Yarmouk military base itself. A possible match is the dirt road on the southeastern side of the base – which also separates the shed compound from the base itself. The bodies might have been some 100 meters further southwest.

    ReplyDelete
  7. One quick irrational thought - the river running through the area roughly SE=NW would be completely dry in Summer one imagines. Is this the dirt road? It does look depressed relative to the surroundings.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Not irrational. It means you're looking. I saw that too, and might look again, but I thought too wide, too varied, too curvy. But with fresh eyes and a nod, perhaps a stretch will popout on the next look.

    Petri: Quite right. The shadow length suggests it's not quite mid-day, but neither very early or late. It's really hard to be sure if it's AM or PM. I think it goes like this: If afternoon light, the road runs pretty much north-south, possibly with a NW/SE tilt. If it's AM light, the road would run east-west, perhaps with a NE/SW tilt.

    I did suspect the road behind the base, but it didn't seem to match on minor details too vague and tedious to describe. The video road seems less established, and that wall looks a little wimpy for the base. Though it also looks pretty long for any private lot. Will consider again now as I open the map.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The river-like area seems to be part wadi, part two-part road, and a stretch of it might be the place. The other thing is where the wall is relative to the road -if north-running, the wall runs west side, if east, it's along the south side. So this portion might explain an afternoon video like that. When you look at where trees and buildings are north and south of the camera position, does it seem consistent to anyone else? Any better guesses?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree, this is the best match so far. Too little details to confirm this 100%.

    Unfortunately the location is so far from the shed, that it would be impossible to make any conclusions on the identity of the burnt victims based on the identity of the dirt road victims. The massacres can be unrelated.

    ReplyDelete
  11. HRW itself (quoted by the Guardian) shows two photos of some of the 18 bodies rotting in small groups in the dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab Al-Aziziya but the clothing doesn't seem to match those on the sunken dirt road. (see also alleged witnesses at the bottom of the page,especiallyJuma’ Al-Murayd, 31)
    The HRW page also links to a 6 minute, over dramatic interview of Sidney Kwiram with BBC Radio. She reports on 26 August (the same day the ditch bodies were found, allegedly) on bodies elsewhere. She is described elsewhere as a consultant with to HRW, a Harvard Graduate who leads Silk Road Tours and was also at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Her visit to the Nafusa mountains in July after rebels took control seems to have upset them...see this video description.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Those are some photos they have.The dry river bed looks to me more like a concrete canal, and those six are among the eight I covered in Ghargour black trash. I now realize the 18 by the river include those, plus the one shown (not part of that group, I think) AND perhaps these others, given as in Abu Salim. Still need to sort that out sometime...

    ReplyDelete
  13. A little concrete around it, but it's a natural riverbed alright...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sorry... won't spend any more time now, but these last bodies might be outside Abu Salim prison. Some walled compound, not up by bab al Aziziyah like the dumpster pile. Will start an odds and ends post for un-placed Tripoli massacres.

    ReplyDelete
  15. abuslam1 has uploaded an interesting video on 18 October, misleadingly titled إكتشاف بقايا جثث في مستودع سري في طرابلس - The discovery of the remains in a secret warehouse in Tripoli.(which it is not). However, it shows a drive past the site of a kind of underground riverbed, but with compartmenalising overhead bridging structures, with square sides and walled top. The base is not visible. People are looking over and photographing below at about 1.10 onwards. The site ought to be well identified wrt the Compound. I don't understand the comment.

    ReplyDelete
  16. That last is not for tonight. Did some updates. And out of curiosity, I checked the sun angle in the CBC's photos.
    Posted Aug 28, 1:40 pm. Filmed early afternoon, it seems.
    Photo of the victim shows the west side of that wall just starting to catch direct light, suggesting an azimuth near parallel with the wall. That's 208 degrees.
    I did the NOAA calc first, and didn't look. It says 210.18 at 1:00.
    So it was either put up right away, or was filmed a neat 24 hours before. The stairs victim's dessicated hands, relative to the photo of the 26th, makes me think two days have passed.

    That makes CBC's footage apparent Aug 28 footage inside the shed, and it looks about the same. If anything weird happened, it would have to be quick, that afternoon. A big truck-full of the rest, a few guys with flame throwers and serious accelerants, and others with fire extinguishers, shovels, bags, then cart it all away quick, with the cover story safely in place...

    "And now a lady from CNN wants to see it too? It's nearly sunset, we've been here for four days already! Oh man... she's pretty? Okay, stall her for fifteen minutes. And you guys, hurry it the hell up!" They didn'teven have time to stomp out the last of the new flames.

    It makes a certain sense, but I'll have to look closer at the footage she caught to see if there's anything to it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. PK: Unfortunately the location is so far from the shed, that it would be impossible to make any conclusions on the identity of the burnt victims based on the identity of the dirt road victims. The massacres can be unrelated.
    Could be, certainly. But I suspect they're totally related, and that makes about 175 victims, still not a single dead soldier killed by NATO or rebels yet spoken of.

    It is too far away as well as too black to fit the rebel story. "These 22 ran way, around the whole base, across the highway, down this road, took a left, and then down this road the guards finally caught up..." Clearly not. Hence no media tours over here, only locals who were perhaps more level than the ones we heard from.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Check out this video, uploaded on 28 Sept by AljwahrFreeMedia17 but showing over 11 minutes of footage around the warehouse compound and over the wall to the staircase, with close-ups of the bodies. Wish I could get a translation of the dialogue...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY
    Translates as holocause collective Al Furjan 160 Martyrs.
    39 views....
    Check the guy at 5.54.

    ReplyDelete
  19. @Felix – Re: Holocaust collective Al Furjan 160 Martyrs

    Note the one piece of physical evidence the camera zooms in on at 3:30 – a green loyalist scarf. Is this an indication of the identity of the perpetrators or of the victims?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY
      petri, @ 3.24 : this is nr. 6 of the FBpage list. What do you think?

      Delete
  20. Dynamite evidence, that. All but the CBC's three yard victims shown, including the face-shot victim, whose face looks strangely sort-of monochrome even closer-up. And here is the only view I know of showing the interior of the other, smaller half of the shed. It's got burnt people too, but not very many, it seems. These things will be added.

    The green flag is visible in other spots, building corners, etc. Plus army clothes all over, and the Khamis Katiba army base next door, all suggests strongly a loyalist involvement in this, as the slaughterers or, more likely, the slaughtered. The cameraman probably felt different. Maybe like: Only loyalists have green scarves to drop at crime scenes!

    ReplyDelete
  21. The Red Cross team points to the houses south-west of the compound when the "Man in the House" is found. The house is half finished and uninhabited. I checked the history on Google Earth: of the three houses overlooking the south-west wall the one nearest the base – the one where you have placed the eyeless victim – is the oldest, first seen in 2008. The two other appear between May 2009 and October 2010.

    ReplyDelete
  22. ...continued:
    The Telegraph video shows that the two houses nearest the base are finished, with air conditioners on the outside. The third one is unfinished. This is most likely the "House with the Dead Man."

    ReplyDelete
  23. I notice in the various videos at least two ISO containers in the compound - a reddish one, and a white one in the livery of Mediterranean Shipping Company. Were journalists not curious about what they might have contained?

    ReplyDelete
  24. I did a Google image search on the new photo of the "gun-toting guy" in front of the shed provided by felix in his comment here.

    The Daily Mail attributes this photo set to AFP/Getty Images. More of the missing images can be found here and here.

    Notice the black body on the front loader. Was he buried already and dug up? He is one of the victims in the pile of bodies you call "Some Nearer Burial." The second picture shows him being dumped on the spot. When did this happen? This needs to go into the timeline.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Good find, Petri. During this strange photo shoot, a white car moves away in the background. He doesn't look dug up to me.
    The man in white robes in another of the Daily Mail shed photos is the one who emerges from it at 0.28 in the France24 Video with the significant limp and rolling gait.

    ReplyDelete
  26. UntiI have a time, it doesn't go in the timeline, but that's a gruesome good find. His clothes don't look dug up, but his dangling legs seem to almost show some bone, and as he's dumped, I'll be damned. Is it me, or is his face completely gone, literally with nothing but clean skull left? Looks like a human body, human head with indistinct, maybe burnt skin, except for the main face zone, with a skeleton's eye and nose sockets standing in.

    Optical illusion? Perhaps, but uncanny.

    Also, the indistinct funky tissue stuck to the blanket on his left side - his arm is visible there, so what is that? Back skin? Has face plus...???

    ReplyDelete
  27. There is one more image from the dumping set here. Notice also the captured foreign "mercenaries."

    There are also interesting photos here and here. Some of these may be new. Notice the armed youth covering his nose in front of the shed. Another picture from inside the shed shows him looking in. The blue prison transport wan can be seen in the background parked right in front of the shed.

    ReplyDelete
  28. The front loader used to dump the bodies in the middle of the yard is already seen in the first Sky News video where Dr. Salem al-Farjani first introduces the rebel fable. There is a large group of men standing in the middle of the yard; it is unclear if the bodies have already been dumped there.

    The CBC News report by Susan Ormiston shows a second front loader in addition to the first one.

    How did the gravel get into the front loader's bucket? The implication in the reporting is, that the bodies have been excavated from the pit / grave on the edge of the compound. It is equally possible they came from somewhere else. The rebels did not want to get their hands dirty and decided to use the front loader for moving the bodies – taking along half a cubic meter of the surrounding ground.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Looking more closely at the Sky News video I see that both front loaders are present in all early videos, parked besides the white shipping container by the eastern wall. Even more amazing is that they are both seen in the August 20th satellite image you have used as the basis of your layout map.

    What is missing from the Aug 20 image is the excavation next to the bent light post. It is seen in the earliest August 27th footage. Did "al-Gaddafi" somehow anticipate the need to start digging mass graves at the site already on August 20th?

    ***

    So far we do not have a clue to what really happened at the shed. The first step in solving the mystery would be identifying and cataloging all pieces of evidence at the crime scene at the time of discovery; excluding all the false evidence that has been later planted. Our on-site "investigators" in Libya are of little help; so far no one has produced an accurate description of the crime scene.

    The thing we can do is catalog all the vehicles; identify the ones that were there when the press or the rebels first came in, and hopefully match them to the August 20th satellite image.

    ***

    I have again gone through the old satellite images available through Google Earth. There is hardly any activity on the site from 2002 to 2010. On February 22, 2011 the site seems abandoned, with weed growing throughout the yard. It is dryer on March 7th, with most of the weed gone, but still no sign of any vehicle or car.

    On May 14th the site has burst into activity; four large trucks and about 30 other vehicles cover the yard. at least six cars or vans are parked door-to-door in front of the shed, as if to load or unload something.

    It is clear this new activity is somehow related to the civil war and NATO's war of aggression. Some part of the army or the state security apparatus has sought refuge in this compound from NATO bombing.

    It is likely the shed has become some kind of arms or munitions depot. We have been shown all kinds of farm buildings, maybe even schools, stuffed wall high with anti-tank mines and MANPAD surface-to-air missiles. At the Khamis Brigade shed we see no sign of this military activity. Dr. Rajub says the shed was used for "agriculture." Where did all the ammo go?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Are these the same front loaders (well, one at least) which were prominent on the Abu Salim roundabout earlier in the week? Certainly the arms dump fits in with other news reporting from the area in September. But, yes, why was it found and emptied quickly? Proximity to the base, thus more likely to be searched?

    ReplyDelete
  31. I'll answer my own question about the front loaders - probably not. What I do find interesting is that at the roundabout, CNN's Dan Rivers is surrounded by bodies and four non operational front loaders. Clearly they are there to for tidying up, but not until the journalists have been taken sightseeing.

    ReplyDelete
  32. @Felix – No, you are wrong. All the front loaders in Libya were there to build Gaddafi palaces – so his people could suffer in poverty. Judging from the numbers of front loaders we see in Libya Gaddafi must have been one hell of a palace builder. How did he ever find time to live in all of them? ...or rape, plunder or what ever he was doing?

    ReplyDelete
  33. From the series of photos by Seamus Murphy/VII already discussed here:

    These three photos, 109399, 109401, and 109403 are erroneously labeled as
    A man drags dead bodies onto a truck in Abu Salim, a district of hardline loyalist support, Tripoli, Libya on Aug. 27, 2011.

    In fact they depict three unidentified bodies at the shed massacre site, seen early in the morning of August 27. The bodies are evidently being dragged from inside the white Mitsubishi prison transport truck onto a flatbed pickup. Two of the men are white Arabs in civilian cloths. These three men are not seen in any of the later photos or videos.

    Notice, how someone is painting graffiti on the Isuzu "freezer" pickup in the background.

    The darker man has his face mutilated. The two lighter men should be easy to identify, in fact they may be the only identifiable bodies on the whole compound.

    These bodies give the strongest impression so far of "Gaddafi" culpability. I would assume the rebels would use these bodies to prove to the world that "Khamis did it." So far we have seen nothing of the proof.

    ReplyDelete
  34. The refrigerator seemed to be on the other side of the wall from the large jib crane.(AT C4 video)

    ReplyDelete
  35. A I noted in my comment on Jan 5, 2012 at 08:44 AM photographers Benjamin Lowy and Ron Haviv were "taken on a tour" by rebel media controllers, both publishing photos of the exact same scenes. One more photographer to join this tour is Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR, whose photos were published by TIME:
    The Battle for Tripoli: Photographs by Yuri Kozyrev

    Notice photo number 27 showing the front loader with one body outside the shed. One more proof that the shed acted as a morgue, where bodies were brought from all around.

    ***

    A recent change to the layout of the blog has made it impossible to link to old comments, as there is no link available on the page. This is a loss.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I saw the front-loader driving down the side street. I absolutely agree bodies were brought here from around, though some were executed on site as well. I only ever quibbled at the idea the loyalists were using it as one for their own prior to the rebel takeover (if you made that point at all). Maybe at first, but at least the vast majority of these bodies were dumped there by the rebels, and I think #1 at least, and the one just east of him with blood spray on the wall fromhis head, were killed by them, one on-site.

    Some whacked out things lately, the big one coincidence. I'll look into the comments change. I only noticed suddenly the font was different, layout a bit different, thought maybe it was on my end only. But the handy posted at link isn't there either and we both see that. Hmmm...

    Hackers! CIA! They burnt me toast today too!

    ReplyDelete
  37. @ Petri, also updates not worked in-I found another photo of the faceless bodyin the hospital/morgue. It's given as Abu Salim, Aug. 26 (one of the VII photos, Haviv I think). Possible it was trucked all the way down from there? Or just two cases of dog-eaten faces?

    And, as I update, I'm wondering if I didn't get one too many visible victims. The three CBC bodies might be two -the shirtless black man could actually be this same faceless victims, if the "plastic sheet" is really this rug he was dumped with. What do you think?

    But we've also got AlexThomson's unseen victims in the trees and down the alley, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  38. @Caustic – I am saying it was a loyalist morgue. Or does it really matter, much of Libyan civilian life seems to be happening the same way no mater who was in charge.

    I do not think we have any reason tho believe the base was taken by the rebels before the 26th. I do not know who burnt the bodies.

    Body #1 was the first one to be placed in the shed – meaning it was done by loyalists. The pile of bodies in the center may have been brought in by rebels – or the local civilian cleanup crew.

    There is a large excavation on the site that did not exist on August 19th. This was dug by loyalists after the bodies started arriving.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ Petri - "I do not think we have any reason tho believe the base was taken by the rebels before the 26th." That I'd have to call wrong. But I'll take it to the chronologies post.

      Delete
  39. Quoting from the Der Spiegel story
    Evidence of a Massacre Found Near Tripoli

    "An alternative explanation, however, would be that the rebels massacred their prisoners on Friday evening after the battle and tried to pin the crime on Gadhafi's forces. But on Saturday evening, one of the bodies lying outside was swarming with thousands of tiny maggots, which would be impossible if the man had only been killed the day before."

    Which body would this be? At first I thought this referred to the bodies dumped in the middle of the yard, but they were only brought in on August 28th.

    This August 28th photo by Yuri Kozyrev also confirms another part of the story: the shed compound walls have been raised by four layers of brick.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Petri: "Which body would this be? At first I thought this referred to the bodies dumped in the middle of the yard, but they were only brought in on August 28th."

      One of the yard ones, apparently. He seems to speak of the mattress victims mostly, all two of them (??). These were there on the 26th, as seen in Berehulak photos of that day (unless mis-dated). All three were there all day the 27th. Stairs victim there. Maggots on the 27th suggests death on anywhere between the 23rd and 25th, put vaguely from my limited study of that.

      The skeleton face victim was brought in about noon on the 28th. The rest, I'm not sure.

      One of the witnesses mentioned seeing the wall raised, as it was at some point, for security purposes, one guesses. But as I see it, given the gaping hole in the wall these men slept under, night after night often for months, as I see it they only made it a tad easier to escape (no climbing down to the wall's top, just right over).

      Could they ever in those nights stack two or three tires and start climbing while the guards slept? If not, why not?

      Delete
  40. I think the alleyway bulldozer photo is clearly posed - taken for a quick spin for the photographers? - just as the grieving relatives pics are. What is the story to be conveyed though? That bodies cleared from the streets were brought here, dumped (as in the photos of the same loader inside the compound) and...then what?
    Did you notice that the Germans noted that the prison van was made in the USA pre-2001?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @felix – Posed? No way! The body is very real.

      There must have been dozens of bodies lying around the neighborhood. This could even be one of the bodies from the Mosque dumb.

      What I find interesting is a female journalist pointing to the exact spot where this body was dumped and seeing the ground covered with maggots. If I remember correctly, this happened on August 27th. I assume the same cleanup crew had been bringing in bodies before.

      Delete
    2. Posed? Yes, not a chance photo, or grab shot - but like the rest of the Khamis compound journo-fest, staged. But a real body? Of course. What was the point of those posed photos with body in the digger's bucket inside the compound? I have no idea. Why just one body in the bucket if you are either
      a) cleaning up the city and dumping them in the compound for whatever purpose.Why not fill it with a good load of bodies?
      b) Cleaning up the compound by taking one body away , and leaving all the others for the photographers to feast on?

      No journalist reported bodies coming in here as a clean-up operation. And the alleged clean-up crew were dumping bodies in strange places in the yard for what purpose? To simulate escapees? And it just so happens that the place is crawling with journalists and photographers when out of the blue a body comes in on a front loader? Don't think so.

      Delete
    3. Here is an Hungarian video showing the front loader scooping up the body from the alleyway shout of the shed compound (1:51):
      Al Ghaoui Hesna - Tripoli - 2011.08.28.

      Delete
    4. @Petri - one point: didn't Al-Ghaoui visit the compound before Alex Thomson of Channel 4 - and Thomson found bodies everywhere beyond the compound? Need to check times.

      Delete
    5. We should set up the timeline somewhere. At the moment I have no idea who came first.

      The victim in the alleyway is the same as the one wearing the white Adidas snickers. I think they were dumped in the yard quite late in the day. Is it possible the Al-Ghaoui video uses footage from some other team?

      Delete
    6. The Al-Ghaoui report has much footage in common with the RT video which itself has two periods of filming, early and mid - late morning. However, Al-Ghaoui is photographed there during the second period with unique footage.
      The Alex Thomson footage is interesting:: at 4.15 it seems mid-way between the two RT/Al-Ghaoui shoots. The interview at around 3.50 is perhaps a little later than the footage at 4.15. So I guess Thomson was there before Hesna Al-Ghaoui. I was wrong.

      Delete
  41. I believe the burnt body shown here is in fact inside the "guard house" and should thus be counted as being outside the shed:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLPNu9NQN9Y&t=33

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBxAIVsmnw0
      check doorway here, 1:30. Looks like a normal floor of green carpet, with a distinct edge.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY
      7:47 shows the second charred room being entered. Inconsistent threshold, IMO - rough concrete then dirt. I think that's the side chamber, though I'd still like to see inside the little shack. There are the smoke stains visible on its east side, and possibly more bodies inside.

      Either way, I'd say it's better to keep the general pattern of those burnt (so far all inside) vs. those not (so far all outside, except the one). Inside-outside is less important, just handy as co-indicator.

      Delete
  42. I wonder if this body photographed by Bryan Denton, NYT is the one from the front-loader bucket, as the skin also seems to be gone from the rib cage. First time I have seen gas masks in use there too. Taken Sunday 28 August.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @felix – I cannot see a rib cage, but this definitely is the same pile of bodies dumped by the front loader on August 28th.

      Brian Denton of the NYT also took this photo from inside the shed:
      Men surveyed the charred remains of 46 bodies, said to belong to prisoners of Qaddafi loyalist forces, in a shed in Tripoli

      Moises Saman took this photo for The New York Times:
      The bound body of a man lay covered in a blanket inside a warehouse where at least 50 other bodies were found, in the Yarmouk neighborhood of Tripoli.

      The set also contains this photo by Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press:
      A rebel fighter walked inside a warehouse containing the remains of at least 50 burned bodies in Tripoli.

      Also note this photo by Sergey Ponomarev:
      African migrant workers whom rebels had suspected of being Colonel Qaddafi mercenaries were released outside a military base in Tripoli.
      These must be the same Africans rescued by the (American?) TV crew.

      Delete
  43. @Petri
    Bryan Denton is also responsible for a few more yard shots. one here with gas masks, and another in the alcove between the sheds The 'victory or death" graffiti seems to have been over painted with some frame of whitewash...
    One of the bodies in the compound is covered in lime. The whole page shows several charred remains photos, plus the already discovered photo with the man in red with gas masks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NB the white paint is NOT present on the Orla Guerin shot,top above, ,on the graffiti around "Al Nasr aw Al Mut" - is it lime? Why the square outline of the white substance on the Denton shot?

      Delete
    2. felix : Al Nasr aw Al Mut ; elnasr is dead

      about photo comparing :

      http://i41.tinypic.com/2rorrl1.jpg
      same person ?
      http://i41.tinypic.com/dfh7ow.jpg




      http://i40.tinypic.com/acqxp1.jpg


      @ felix : do you see something simular/familiair?

      http://i41.tinypic.com/fnv9fa.jpg

      comparing with these guys ?
      http://i42.tinypic.com/2qn8mk4.jpg




      felix : your man seems here to loot weapon depot at yarmouk area

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUr0yEqvoe8
      @ 0.21 beard Tripoli brigade on left / reporter talks about weapons at yarmouk

      Delete
  44. @ felix, I posted it some hours before , but it did not show up:

    You asked lately why alEtri [with pantalon and white shirt] and his compagnon in white jebba went to between the trucks left of the shed.

    Maybe they went for seeing the poor guy on the stairs :

    http://i39.tinypic.com/2zhgj7q.jpg
    YARMOUK BASE IN BACKGROUND

    http://i39.tinypic.com/1584jrl.jpg
    http://i40.tinypic.com/jpetxz.jpg
    WHITE TRUCK BLUE TRUCK

    http://i39.tinypic.com/3356ydw.jpg
    BEHIND WHITE CARS CORNER with CAR NO WHEELS[NOTICE BLUE TRUCK]
    http://i42.tinypic.com/1z6f9zr.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/21m6cts.jpg

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY
    YT 6.26 TO BODY ON STAIRS

    http://i40.tinypic.com/fnfvk4.jpg
    COME from stairs TO SMALL WALL,BLUE TRUCK, WHITE TRUCK SEEN FROM FRONT

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @hurriya – Thank you for the link to the Aljwarh Free Media video. I had not seen this before, only some 120 views on YouTube. The time is about 1:45 pm on August 27th.

      Is it not Dr. Salim we see in front of the shed at 5:36?
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY&t=5m36s

      Delete
    2. The video's already been mentioned here (the "spooky" one, linked above). Is that Dr. Salem? Never notived or wondered before. From just the shirt I'd say maybe not. Looks too blue, but then so does everything. But being sort of in the middle of a few people, pudgy and short, says maybe yes, and the arm gestures seen around 5:56 say probably yes. Good call. I think I'll be adding that eventually.

      Delete
    3. And I guess "good call" goes more to Hurriya here. Yeah! See-through Salem, arm-flailing bright-blue moron, caught again explaining things to a group of people. I don't know what kind of people -possibly journos, poss. "witnesses" or other helpers. Worth a little more looking, but I'm out of time already this early AM

      Delete
  45. I took some shots of the mattres victims and saw signs of al qaida style of killing. Most obvious to see at the victim at the shed wall : his left eye is taken out and his genital area and legs are in such a strange position that the ressemblence with the killing of the defector younis : scrotum and eyes deleted came in my mind.

    http://i43.tinypic.com/95ykuq.jpg
    http://i42.tinypic.com/245h3m9.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/2e4f8ep.jpg
    http://i41.tinypic.com/2egfbpw.jpg
    eye missing and probably scrotum too

    http://i41.tinypic.com/mjpsnt.jpg
    orange blanket body blood between legs
    other photo's show his mattres and blanket soaked with blood
    more closely looking at the vid y can see a total clean white shoe on the blood to his head,

    on the person with the green blanket caustic already done his remarks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Scrotum? Yikes... But the stairs victim seemed to have a groin injury maybe from where his hand is resting. You said these are pajamas, and they were caught asleep. I agree with that. The mattresses were for sleeping, they had toiletries hanging nearby...

      I saw a tidbit on the man under the green blanket, forget what it was. Maybe in thatLiberation article? It was French, saw beneath the blanket I think.

      I was puzzled by the blue blood by mattress victim 1, 'til I realized it's the sky reflected. Duh.

      Thanks for these and others. Been meaning to respond but tonight my only working internet program died, and I had a hell of a time getting anew browser back.

      Delete
  46. some shots do show as if a complete body is inside the shed . Probably not, c on the vid you can see a blue shirt outside in the background , talking to a group that looks like journo's.

    http://i43.tinypic.com/23krsew.jpg
    http://i41.tinypic.com/2nvxkhw.jpg
    http://i40.tinypic.com/4hxmdj.jpg


    http://i42.tinypic.com/2em0w75.jpg
    white clean shoe seems to be placed there after the killing party

    ReplyDelete
  47. I had another look at the Channel 4 video from August 28th with Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson:
    Evidence of Libya nassacre as remains of 50 people found

    At 4:40 we see a shot from the empty lot to the south of the compound, right south of where the crane and the water tanker are parked. Both can be seen on the video behind the wall. You can also see in the background the broken down electricity pylon situated across the road in front of the gate.

    Behind the broken refrigeration there is a black body lying face down with white sneakers. Is this the faceless body brought in by the front loader? There is another video showing the front loader scooping up a body among threes. Is this the same place?

    Also see by comment on the "earth movers" in the post dedicated to the Shed Massacre: Vehicles. This should be linked from the master list. Now it is not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Behind the broken refrigeration there is a black body lying face down with white sneakers. Is this the faceless body brought in by the front loader?
      http://i40.tinypic.com/33m50qx.jpg
      shoe man behind frigidiaire

      http://i40.tinypic.com/34sezaf.jpg
      another body beneath tree?

      http://i43.tinypic.com/o5xx.jpg
      apperently not same bodies


      http://i39.tinypic.com/29qk51e.jpg
      At 4:40 we see a shot from the empty lot to the south of the compound, right south of where the crane and the water tanker are parked

      Same vid :
      http://www.channel4.com/news/evidence-of-libya-massacre-as-remains-of-50-people-found
      a fighter suddenly produces a dozen ID's dated 2009 of british men, connected to this base
      there's no evidence these men had any connection with recent atrocities
      Can you believe it?

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12660163

      Delete
    2. @Petri / Hurriya - re the Alex Thomson visit - there is another uncensored version of the video showing quite clearly the 2009 photo id cards which Thomson says were found in the Khamis base. You can read the names transcribed in arabic - David, Mark, Matthew, surnames are more diffcult to read . Hills is one. The guy Brian at 3.21 is the Engineer - مهندس Anyway, AT says the individuals are named as collaborators of the Khamis base. From about 2.57 in the video onthis Human Rights Investigations, HRI web page. They just look like visitors' badges. The bottom line seems to read Al Loua'32 Al Amaal (Amal = "Collaborator" in my dictionary but probably has another meaning , اللواء Loua' = Brigade or Major General) See wiki page for the Khamis Brigade, especially re 2009, Belgium, the Shed Massacre...
      I can't read the top line of the visitors cards - a formal script.

      Delete
    3. Scrolling thru comments, this one I had to check on. Sadly, I'm not sure I can see it. Low resolution. Maybe the video in motion would help.

      First image, maybe body. I can see maybe shoes. I think the faceless guy did have white shoes, he was dumped from a front loader, and a front loader was seen picking up a bodyfrom among (these?) trees in the Hungarian video.

      Second, just can't tell. Looks possible.

      Third, nope. That would be from the other 22 over behind the mosque.

      Delete
    4. Brilliant follow-up, Felix! There's no reason for shame at those or any contractors working at the same base where rebels slaughtered so many and made up such a huge complex of lies to toss the blame as usual. Probably not even if the rebel story were true. As it's said, there's no evidence they were the ones grenading people and letting 50 of them run off unharmed. That was done by some stupid nigger mercenaries, as usual, and they're dead now. I mean they ran away. But they'll get caught.

      Delete
    5. Wonder why the id cards were shown, with names, which any arab speaker/writer could read? The spin on AT's story is to dish dirt on T. Blair (but not the current NATO invaders) and as we know, even emigree Libyan dissidents were also doing good business in Libya in 2009 - Mr Salah Mussa for instance: Chesterton sponsor Middle East Association event in Libya
      September 30, 2009 Chesterton are sponsoring the Trade Mission 2009 event at the British Embassy in Libya.

      The Middle East Association are hosting a trade mission event at the British Embassy in Libya that will bring together over 400 businesses in Libya. Chesterton is proud to announce exclusive sponsorship of this event on 23rd November 2009.

      Mercantile Group builds largest private hospital in Libya
      September 23, 2009 The Mercantile Group is constructing the largest private hospital in Libya and is on track to start operation in the second half of 2010. The hospital compound consists of nearly 25,000 sq m built-up area and will eventually contain over 260 room/beds.

      Once opened the hospital will be operated by the German based EPOS and is projected to be the most sophisticated and modern hospital in the region.

      Delete
  48. Denton seems to have visited two days running. Inside shot 27th, yard, afternoon of the 28th. Good pictures of that strange excavation right outside the smaller block where the body covered by a rug was found.

    ReplyDelete
  49. may be it means nothing , but I see 1 shoe placed at victims heads :
    http://i39.tinypic.com/35kogt1.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/10neq6q.jpg


    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109478
    A dead body is covered by a blanket after heavy fighting between rebels and loyalists at Bab al-Aziziya, the former compound of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Tripoli, Libya on Aug. 25, 2011.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Here is a photo of two "mattress victims" in Zawiyah. It does not look as these soldiers were killed in combat.

    Les anglonautes
    A man takes pictures of the bodies of pro-Khadafy soldiers killed when rebel fighters seized control of the center of the strategic coastal city of Zawiyah on August 20, 2011.
    Bob Strong/Reuters

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've seen that and have it saved, just haven't done anything with it. More awfulness the Gaadafi regime is only capable of when they share a space with rebel fighters, as they :lose their grip on power."

      Delete
  51. The body outside the smaller shed beneath the flowery blanket, photographed by Moises Saman 27 August: https://www.nytsyn.com/images/photos?start_date=1901-01-01&search_id=691345#621992

    ReplyDelete
  52. First comment after complete rewrite:

    I would numbered the victims differently, making #1: "The Man in the Truck" number #3 and putting #2: "The Crawler" and #3: "The Runner" first. This would make the numbering contrary to the estimated time of death, with those killed killed last getting the lowest numbers.

    I think we should emphasize "The Crawler" and "The Runner" as thy are central to the "massacre" fable. "The Man in the Truck" is more like and anomaly, putting him first distracts from the issue. Besides, his burnt face is a bit too graphic to be at the start of the post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A re-write makes comments become outdated, but keeping it all in the same spot is worth it.

      Fair points, but I already made the plates... it helps open and close on burning (as just noted) for nice symmetry, and a bang you can't recover from. We can see the throat slice as well as the efforts to hide it. Amazing.

      And arguably, it's the action bodies that are the anomaly from those clearly pinned down, tortured, and executed. They're definitely interesting, of course, and I'm not sure I fully appreciate how just yet. ANyway, they're #2 and 3 despite the relative lack of shock value.

      Will consider re-sizing the graphic or some half-measure to make the full impact more optional.

      Delete
  53. @Adam I think it is important to do a screen save and upload at 0.22 in the TVE1 Spanish Video, showing a completely different arrangement of #5 as noted originally by Hurriya.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh man, forgot about that. Briefly uncovered, some new detail on the legs. Might take a few still and stitching, but I have the stills now. Thanks for the tip.

      Delete
    2. It was body #4, and I got a nice image from stitching. That's some leg wound.

      Delete
  54. I just noticed that bodies #1, #2, and #3 are in fact seen in the Sky News video. The flatbed truck and the Black cleanup worker in the yellow shirt are seen driving away in the background at the very end of the video.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. IS that the same guy? Yeah, I think so without double-checking. But the bed is empty. I apparently dropped them off, came back for more (?), came to the same basic spot, and left empty. The same truck is sitting there a while with no bodies, just a stretcher maybe and some fabric. Strange.

      Delete
    2. The body in the box, #11 is crazy. Even crazier is the almsot total lack of interest in it from journalists, photographers and camera crews. Why? [what's the source for the bottom right screensave)

      Delete
    3. Yeah, it's not very well explored. Not much there really was. The smell served to get them in and out. Get a "witness" account, dramatic footage, and scram.

      The lower right is just a crop from the view at lower left, so RT Arabic. Upper right is Balint.

      Delete
    4. @Caustic – I just noticed there are videos by Sky News where chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay interviews Dr. Salim.

      The full story on the Sky News site:
      'Mass Killing' Evidence Found In Libya

      A video on YouTube uploaded by skynews:
      - Sky News Shown Mass Grave In Tripoli - Up To 150 Reportedly Massacred

      The scene is only seen on the YouTube video. The quality is however so bad it is difficult to see what is and what isn't on the truck. I think the bodies are there.

      It is strange how the truck mysteriously appears behind Ramsay. It must be that parts of the interview were shot in reverse order.

      A similar blue truck is also seen parked in the background in the other (later) video, this time with its sides folded up.

      Delete
    5. ...meant to say there are two videos by Sky News.

      Delete
    6. I just noticed that the morgue guy in the yellow shirt is also seen in this amateur video I had saved.

      محرقة جماعية بمنطقة خلة الفرجان
      (Mass Holocaust in Al Furjan region)
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KWx4GDPiY
      Uploaded by aljwarhFreeMedia17 on Sep 28, 2011

      Dr. Salim is also seen at 5:36. Is he speaking to Sky News Stuart Ramsay?


      @Felix: Your link is to the 16:00 broadcast by Sky News. There is also this video from 18:00 with the alternate, later interview with Dr. Salim – filmed, I believe at the same time as this amateur video.

      مدبحة معسكر خميس الجزء التانيSky News.mpg
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPxMyppw05I
      Uploaded by freelibyano1 on Aug 27, 2011

      Delete
    7. @ Petri re: Salem: It's a small group he's talking to, mostly I think looking like locals or workers. I think this is a bit later in the day after Ramsay left. But I'm not solid on either point.

      Delete
    8. 5.46 is the best shot in the Aljwarh video - I'm sure it's Salem. It also looks like Ramsay. But in the meantime, the name Gaddafi has been painted out in red. By the way, (re comment below) I think the body in the box may be from the side room which was burning on the 26th.

      Delete
  55. http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Aug/Week4/16058171.jpg
    where are the bodies????

    @ 14 .08 ramsay : Ive a suspicion having listen to 1 of the survivors now, he might well have been a soldier who had refused to kill people

    @ 15.05 : the ICC is the first thing that the gentleman who Ive talked with said in fantastic English : please , get this investigated
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cLADLAitVI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uElO3wi_NMw&feature=related
    Sky News joining misrata brigades سكاى نيوز فى رفقة كتائب ثوار مصراته
    woods near rixos hotel @ 2.36 presenting as happening on Aug 27, 2011?

    The last enclave in greater Tripoli to fall to the rebels appeared to be Qasr bin Ghashir, which they took early Saturday = 27 aug
    http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/28/world/la-fg-libya-fighting-20110828

    ReplyDelete
  56. The four bodies seen by the New York Times on September 8 and photographed by Moises Saman were in fact exhuming from under the tree in the southeast corner of the shed compound. (photo1, photo2)

    I do not believe these bodies were buried before August 28th. Most likely they are some from #4 to #11.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times (link in main text to Septmber 6 article) reported a find outside the compound on September 5:
      MaryFitzgerldIT Mary Fitzgerald
      Body found buried in grounds of Tripoli concrete factory next to where 50+ burnt corpses found last month. Locals suspect more buried there
      9:15 AM Sep 5th, 2011

      Delete
    2. Mary Fitzgerald ‏ @MaryFitzgerldIT
      Just come from where body was found in grounds of concrete factory behind Tripoli HQ of the Khamis Brigade. Body showed signs of mutilation
      5:17 PM - 5 Sep 11 via web ·

      Delete
    3. I have her Irish Times article cited above. The tweets add little, but more than nothing.

      Delete
  57. Re: the body in the crate. It is clearly visible in late afternoon of Aug 27, best seen in the still screen shot from France 24, and carefully left overnight for the descent of the press the next day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ Felix: Good catch, thanks. I relied on the exterior image chronology post, which wasn't 100% rigorous. Will update here if not there.

      Delete

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