Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre: Several Days' Worth

May 10, 2012
last edits May 12

<< The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre

Okay, I'm starting this post in haste to go work on other things. I've had about five people now alert me (and thanks to all) to this massive new article in the New York Times Magazine.
In Libya, the Captors Have Become the Captive
By Robert F. Worth, May 9
It deals heavily with the so-called Khamis Brigade shed massacre and a bit on the Qasr Ben Ghashir weirdness, through the lens of many men who've been captured, abused, mentally broken, saddled with these crimes, and confessed to them slavishly.

It's sick going, but full of gems of incongruity and transparent rebel deception. I've spotted like seven noteworthy timeline clues (photos of the dead, still-acknowledged by name as part of THIS massacre, on rebel phones on the 24th? WTF? Compare with the timeline clues already compiled in a rare "finished" report section here) besides several supposed executioners, allegations, inconsistencies in sequence of attack, Abdul Razak the hero guard of yore shot in the foot ... and that was by page four of nine.

So I won't be absorbing it right away. It's worth careful mining and a little time, but even that ... (groan) ... I see some comments already going into details, but those might help ME get this REPORT done the most if they can be copied here while the thoughts are still fresh, and new ones can maybe gather here too. I intend toinclude as little as possible after careful review for the strongest clues. One passage to start with, a snippet of the truth allowed through but laughed away in this upside-down wonderland:

The militia’s deputy commander strolled into the room and gave [captive and mentally broken soldier-clown-whipping boy] Najjar’s palm a friendly slap. “Hey, Sheik Naji,” he said. “You got a letter.” The commander opened it and began to read. “It’s from your brother,” he said, and his face lit up with a derisive smile. “It says: ‘Naji is being held by an illegal entity, being tortured on a daily basis, starved and forced to sign false statements.’ Oh, and look at this — the letter is copied to the army and the Higher Security Committee!” This last detail elicited a burst of laughter from the men in the room. Even Naji seemed to find it funny. “We always tell the relatives the same thing,” one man added, for my benefit: “There is no legal entity for us to hand the prisoners over to.”

They probably also countered the claims of torture, false statements, and starvation by showing the guy was reasonably well-fed and was laughing along with them at his brother's stupid concerns and agreeing with everything they say and begging for his daily beatings.

I'm starting to digest this myself and may I say, no shortage of insane incongruities and red flags and "He said what?" moments. I'll sort things into the following categories as I do:

Captive loyalists relevant to the shed massacre
Abdel Razaq al-Barouni

One of the Yarmouk guards they captured, a man named Abdel Razaq al-Barouni, was actually viewed as a hero by some of the former prisoners, who told me Barouni unlocked the door of the hangar and urged them to escape just before the Yarmouk massacre began. After Jalal watched one of the Misuratans shoot Barouni in the foot during an interrogation, he decided to take his own fighters and leave, reluctantly allowing the Misuratans to cart off some of his prisoners to their city.

Previously known hero guard - before means this is the Mustafa El-Hitri version, not the Taher El-Bahbah version (see here or here).

Marwan Gdoura, 28
"It was Marwan who shot Omar and the other five victims first..." He "killed six very qualified people whom Libya will need, two doctors and four officers. One of them was my brother," said Nasser Salhoba. Are the Qasr Ben Ghashir victims now squished into Yarmouk, as the first six killed? Did it still happen where the dead Serbians were found, on Aug. 21, 22, and/or 24? (an idea of shocking significance I'll explore in more detail here)

Hamza Haziri!
Previously known as the second in command of the prison there, two steps down from Khamis himself, the rebels say. His superior: Lt. Col. Mohammed Mansour.

Ibrahim Lousha
Some similarities with Ibrahim Tajouri, aside from locale, and with Ibrahim Sadeq Khalifa. Lot of Ibrahims here...

Still missing (or missing again?): Lt. Col. Mohammed Mansour, only mentioned here once by Lousha. Haziri has taken on more prominence, and his commander who took the kill order from Khamis Gaddafi is sidelined now. Is he dead? Was he brigadier [028] the UNHRC spoke with, who denied taking orders like that, or at all, from Khamis?

Other captured loyalists

Jumaa 

Naji Najjar 

Victims/survivors/family
Omar Salhoba 
A doctor, aged 42, treating a child when arrested June 7 in Tripoli, imprisoned at Yarmouk, killed the 24th, pictured twice at Ragai’s HQ museum of the Yarmouk dead, "with a youthful, sensitive face, framed by rimless glasses and pale gray hair." Omar was "revered at Yarmouk for his insistence on treating injured fellow prisoners and for his brave, failed efforts to break the men free." He was there ‘til the end, trying to break out (perhaps missing the exit soldier Barouni gave them?), but for four days failed to treat Aamir Benowen of Tripoli - who had been beaten and tortured so badly on the 19th (in the Yarmouk prison) that he was believed dead, though no other witnesses recall seeing him laying for four days in his own blood unassisted, as Benowen later recalled. But he was alive, no thanks to this hero doctor, and somehow both witnessed and escaped the massacre to speak briefly from his hospital bed to Tracy Shelton of Global Post. He's probably dead now, one way or another.


Rebels of interest
Eissa Gliza
Heads “a large brigade of men from the Nafusah Mountains,” 1,100 men strong, that holds commander Haziri. Quote: “It’s a shame they’re still alive, after what they did,”

Jalal Ragai
Formerly known as Jamal Al-Ragai (per Mr. Worth's last article), and presumably Lt. Col. Jamal Rabbani (who spoke to Alex Loyd), both onetime shed massacre prisoners, with Ragai at least  transferred to and escaped from the nearby Qasr Ben Ghashir prison.


Nasser Salhoba
Omar’s brother, now chief interrogator (torturer) in Ragai’s brigade. A level-headed assessment of prisoner mentality:

Later, after Marwan was taken back downstairs, Nasser said he still wanted to kill him. [...] I asked Nasser if he believed that Marwan felt remorse, as he says he does. Nasser shook his head slowly and grimaced. Not long ago, he said, Marwan went out of his way to avoid stepping on a Qaddafi-era flag that had been placed in a doorway (the rebels all relish stomping on it). He apparently thought no one was watching. “I was furious,” Nasser said. “I beat him with the falga. It was the only time I’ve ever done that. To think that he still feels that way after all this time, that he would kill all of us here if he could.”

Because he reflexively didn't step on the green flag, he wants to kill everyone at the prison for torture and mental manipulation? I would at the very least bitch-slap them all with a shovel, and they haven't even tortured me a lick. Any murder fantasies this prisoner might entertain have an origin outside of, and more recent than, his old indoctrination.

New Shed Massacre Timeline Clues

The Omar death Picture
Omar Salhoba was verified as dead on the 24th, Worth says killed on the 24th, a day after the massacre and two days before rebels now acknowledge being anywhere near the bodies. Yet hours after they were killed, his picture was on a rebel phone by the 25th, and this was shown to his brother Nasser by the rebels who probably killed him. An enraged Nasser is now Ragai's chief torturer ("interrogator" here) 

on Aug. 24, Nasser got a call telling him Omar had been shot in the Yarmouk prison. Gunbattles were still raging in the streets, and Nasser searched for more than a day before a rebel showed him a picture of his brother’s bloodied body. Muslim ritual requires bodies to be buried quickly, and Nasser drove to a military hospital and frantically held up the picture to anyone who might help, until a doctor told him that Omar’s body had been sent to the local mosque to be buried. Nasser found the mosque and reached the graveyard just minutes after the body was sealed into a cement tomb. He reached out and touched the tomb: the mortar was still wet.

The August 24 Escape of Khamis Gaddafi
Marwan reports to Worth that "Hours after the execution, Marwan said, he fled with about 200 soldiers under the leadership of Khamis el-Qaddafi, another of the dictator’s sons. The convoy ran into rebels, and Khamis was killed in a gunbattle. The loyalists then fled to Bani Walid," where he was able to kiss Seif Al-Islam. Then they drove to Sirte, then Sabha, then were attacked, then he fled into the desert, to a town, onto a bus, and back home to Surman. “I wanted to go home all along,” he said, “but I had no car.” The previous accepted survivor of the Khamis convoy, seventeen-year-old Abdul Salam Taher al-Fargi, was there when they left about 4pm on the 26th, after burning all the bodies, and before rebels took over (by 8 pm at the very latest). His truck was blown up, but he fell off first, going on the record only to be contradicted now by this older kid. Al-Rai TV, pro-reime, Syria, and Wikipedia say Khamis was killed only on the 29th.

Other

The Videos
"He [Jalal] had evidence that no one had seen, he said: torture tapes made by Qaddafi’s jailers. He had taken them from the ransacked offices of Hamza Hirazi, the commander at Yarmouk." ...

The Yarmouk victims museum

The Yarmouk victims/escapees/rebel fighter link