Identifying Who Held the Dead

December 31, 2011

Rebel/NTC types are obsessed with a huge list of names they have of missing people feared killed by Gaddafi people, a mammoth pile of unclaimed loyalist corpses resulting from their joint victory with NATO nations, and a desire to find a plausible sounding way to match the two.

But problems will be glossed over. Most of the alleged Gaddafi victims we've seen are black-skinned, whereas the missing that the new government concerns itself with seem by all sources to be almost totally light-skinned Arabs. And there are always valid question of whose custody the dead were last in.
Sometimes it can be proven that a supposed Gaddafi victim was actually a loyalist or suspected one known to have been detained by rebel forces.

The primordial example is the "al Baida massacre," where someone in the Libyan media (ignored) noticed the same exact black man with a hunched back and distinctive sweater, and other probable matches, among two distinct groups of people troubled in February. One video showed nine captured soldiers and suspect "mercenaries" sentenced to die by Islamist rebel fighters. Another later video shows some of these among 22 soldier-types (out of 300 total) killed by their own officers (or by mercenaries) for refusing to shoot innocent protesters.

I might explore the idea and its applications here a bit further, but for now wanted to open it up for any possible match like that anyone has made that hasn't already been done somewhere else. If it's a good enough guess to warrant ruling out at the least, bring it here. The emphasis is on visual proof, but if you have good enough reason, more circumstantial evidence can be called on to establish rebel control over people later found brutally executed.

Or submit excellent matching work that has been done already. The stuff out of Sirte, with the mass grave photos to work off of, has been quite fruitful in proving rebel war crimes the West cares not one iota about.

The Man/Men in Orange
I'll start with a possible match I noticed recently. First, a black man captured in Tripoli, Abu Salim I would guess. Date unsure, but I'd guess Aug. 23 or 24. He certainly looks worried about the foreshadowing these guys are giving him.

Image found on this page full of many, many, other fascinating scenes like it, some quite shocking but none gory. Details and credits unknown.

Then, a photo from Human Rights Watch.

Corpses in the tents behind the makeshift field clinic outside Bab al-Aziziya.
© 2011 Human Rights Watch
From an August 27 dispatch

The dead black guy in the background is interesting too. These should be and eventually will be added to the Roundabout area victims list, along with a few others I've discovered since last update.

The orange "tank top," general skin tone (it can lighten with decay or darken), general build, and history all suggest this could well be the same guy. Cause of death uncertain, but these victims seem to have died largely by the sword, not the bullet. Most seem to be activists camping there, but it's not impossible "mercenary"-looking people (sporty clothes seem to help) would be killed and brought here to be seen as "Gaddafi fighters."

The first image might be from a video. If that's so, and anyone can find it, I'd like to see more. Do we see the captive's right wrist? Back of his head? The main problem I have is the tall hair we can see on top vs. the victim's, appropriately curly but buzzed short all the way to the top, it seems (not so clear here, but I have an enhancement I might share). But it might get tall only at the front, unseen here.