The Tripoli Massacres: Killings at Qasr Ben Ghashir

December 29, 2011
last update May 18, 2012

<< The Tripoli Massacres

Note April 7: This post is kind of clunky. I just organized into a sharper package for the report I'm wrapping up. That's up here now, a better read than this, which I'll leave for whatever it's got the other doesn't.

This minor massacre is said to have occurred near the Yarmouk military base in the Khalet al-Ferjan area just south of Tripoli. It's linked closely in time and space with the "Khamis Brigade shed massacre," allegedly carried out behind that base five kilometers away, by most sources. 150 or more citizens of suspect loyalty were reportedly killed at Yarmouk, and only five at its nearby neighbor, the Qasr Ben Ghashir military camp.

I don't have a precise location, but Google maps has a "Qaser Ben Ghashir" which seems to be the airport. There's also a town, Bin Ghashir, next to it. The whole area (map link) is closer to ten kilometers from Yarmouk, south on al Hadhbah road.

I've had contributors bring up this case with due incredulity, but only now that I thought about it more closely do I feel annoyed enough by its patent dishonesty to finally write this. There are other details to be had, but I'll start with Amnesty International's report of August 26 to see what the slaughter-happy NATO rats told them posing as escapees (it's what they pass on as fact).

Killings at Qasr Ben Ghashir

On 24 August, five kilometres away at Qasr Ben Ghashir military camp, guards loyal to Colonel al-Gaddafi shot dead five detainees whom they were holding in solitary cells. They were among some 75 people captured during the conflict who were being held at the military camp.

Former detainees later told Amnesty International that they had heard guards opening five of the cells before gunshots were fired shortly afterwards.

Detainees panicked and broke out of their cells fearing they were about to be executed.

The doors of this prison are worth some study. 75 men remained securely locked up for days, weeks, whatever, until five prisoners were killed - not four, but five. And then, miracle it seems to be, all 70 of the others, each apparently in their own cell, managed to break open the doors because they were scared. It seems prison is more in your head than you'd think.

They must have done it pretty close to the same time and showed their free numbers, since the guards fled at this time (or just before - see below). If they'd come out at different times, the guards would have just shot the first few as they escaped and the rest might decide not to escape. That would ruin the story.

Incidentally, Amnesty does not say how many of the implied 70 survivors they spoke with other than giving them in plural form, and doesn't give their names or any details, or provide any direct quotes from them.

Continuing:

By the time they got out, the five guards on duty had fled the scene, leaving behind the five victims’ bodies.

They didn't have to put those two fives quite so close together. Five equals five and that's worthy of note here. Maybe it's the rebel way of convincing themselves they weren't really lying, just being poetic, speaking "deeper truths" using symbols (there's a rebel inside every loyalist, Gaddafi loyalty is like a prison, death is a kind of escape, etc...). And besides, it doesn't even make physical sense. How could anyone take it as the literal truth?

On the five who were killed, as opposed to the five who just disappeared (like many did at Yarmouk), Amnesty was told and repeated as fact that:

They included three men from Zliten, a town between Tripoli and Misratah, and two doctors. One of the doctors is believed to be Ali al-Darrat, from Misratah, who was taken prisoner near the eastern frontline in July and had not been heard from since.

This alleged captive Mr. Darrat is also mentioned here until I write it in here. His is an odd case, confused with the shed massacre, perhaps killed months earlier, under quite murky circumstances.

Capping AI's exercise in folklore are a few details of whodunnit and what promises they broke, poetically equating freedom and death in the minds of the vanishing cartoon villains.

Former detainees told Amnesty International that in the days before the killings, guards promised that all detainees would be released before the Eid festivities at the end of August.

Both the Khilit al-Ferjan and Qasr Ben Ghashir camps were reportedly used by the Khamis Katiba brigade, headed by Khamis al-Gaddafi, Colonel al-Gaddafi’s son.

What I think happened in reality, in case it's not clear yet, is that a team of about 70 fighters, presumably from among the Misrata brigades, swept through the camp, imprisoned whoever, and killed five or so presumed Khamis brigade members. Perhaps more were killed and re-located, but this is what they decided to credit at the one site. Then they made up a story in which all the team participated, in alternate roles as prisoners, with the slain soldiers doing the same. They all had been prisoners together, in a sense, and were all now freed, in a way.

Ragai's Story
A rather expansive article from the New York Times, Sept.21 by Robert F. Worth introduces another character, Jamal al-Ragai, an escapee from either this massacre or one remarkably like it. He has a rather different story that makes a bit more sense, but also coflicts in key ways with what numerous witnesses told Amnesty a month earlier.

Jamal, according to Worth, "was a 31-year-old manufacturer of uniforms for Qaddafi’s army" until the uprising this year began. He decided to rebel and started with propaganda, then started making bombs and importing weapons from Tunisia, he says, eventually forming a small team of fighters in the capitol. As of September 21, Ragai "had a militia of about 70 men, many of them veterans of bloody street battles in Misrata and other towns, and he was still running operations against Qaddafi hideouts." It's when he started this hunting in Tripoli that's in question here.

Al Ragai's men clearly held him "in high esteem," Worth noticed, and they said he was "known for his bravery and generosity," always sharing the small amounts of water they were allowed in jail, together.

Between his early activism and his later hunting of loyalists, when a lot of build-up should have been happening, Ragai says he instead spent half the time locked away, mostly at what might be the Qasr Ben Ghashir camp. He was arrested in mid-June on his way to weapons pick-up, he says, and taken straight to the shed behind the Yarmouk base. He displays quite a freak-show of psycho-babble about the treatment dished out there, including genital torture by a bald black woman. Emasculating, infuriating, pure propaganda gold.

In a sense, Ragai was lucky: he was transferred from the Yarmouk prison, where the massacre later took place, to a smaller jail not far away, on the grounds of a construction company. He was there on the evening of Aug. 20, when the uprising broke out in Tripoli. Ragai told me he knew instantly that everyone in the prisons would be killed if they did not escape right away.
[...]
Early on the morning of Aug. 21, the guards opened the door of the cell next to Ragai’s and led out six prisoners. Ragai told me he spoke to one of the guards, a man named Munir, whom he had befriended. It was a last chance. [...appeal to Libyan identity, appeal to Islam, no effect...] Ragai asked him if he could go to the bathroom. The guard let him out. Minutes later, the men heard gunshots. The six men were being executed. But at the same time, Ragai realized that the guard had left him in a cell that could be opened from the inside. [Yes, one of those jail cells] He got out, and began releasing all the remaining men, who fled the compound. The guards did not even try to stop them; instead, they piled into cars and began fleeing themselves.

Okay, that's either another bizarre scenario of the same exact type near Yarmouk, three days before the other, or it's a very different version of the same thing. The guards must have left behind the keys as well.

After his early release, it gets no smoother. Worth says the aspiring rebel "borrowed a car from a man he met near the prison," drove up to Tajoura, "reunited with his old rebel friends and joined the Tripoli uprising." They did helpful things for a couple of days it seems, and then as soon as rebels started winning, I guess after the 23rd, "Ragai’s own concern, he told me, was to free the 150 prisoners at Yarmouk." Too bad he didn't think of it sooner, as they were allegedly killed at sundown on the 23rd.

"Ragai gathered as many men as he could, and a large group of seasoned fighters from Misrata joined them. Soon they had a force of about 150 cars, and they drove west toward Yarmouk in an armed caravan." It was only then that he hooked up with the Misratans he was commanding a month later. Got it. They did this only on the 25th (Worth says the massacre happened two days earlier). "At about midday, Ragai said, he got a call from one of the other fighters on his cellphone. The man had reached the Yarmouk prison and seen the deserted grounds. “It’s too late,” the man said. “Everyone is dead.”

So this alleged discovery of the dead inside the abandoned base happened prior to the rebels' various acknowledged conquest times (mid-day 26th, night 26th, or mid-day27th). Not that any of this actually happened. It just shows the alternate timeline the rebel fighters are working with compared to what they've told the rest of us.

"Ali"
Just found this December report, in PDF form, from "Physicians for Human Rights" 32nd Brigade Massacre.pdf: It featured two new shed massacre escapees, with elaborate retellings of torture, ridiculous escape stories, and a heroic guard they both mention but no one else does. Of interest here is "Ali" (pseudonym) who was held at Yarmouk "about 80 days" before being transferred, with 21 others, to the camp/construction yard.

PHR interviewed “Ali” (pseudonym) on 10 September 2011. Ali was initially detained sometime in mid-April 2011 at the warehouse in the Agricultural Compound at Khalat Al Forjan. He was then transferred in early August to another makeshift prison, apparently located on the premises of a Brazilian construction company (Odebrecht) located in Guser Bin Gashir, Tripoli, where he was a witness to six summary executions of detainees.

As Ragai said, the cells were larger than the original version, and held more than one person each. They were beaten daily, until the day of the massacre three weeks after his transfer:

Early on the morning of 21 August, a guard (name withheld) called out for two doctors and four other detainees from the group. They were blindfolded and led outside. Ali heard a round of gunfire and believed the guards killed the two doctors and four detainees. Everyone inside the cells panicked. “We all cowered against each other fearful of what was about to happen. Then nothing. The guards had run away. I don’t know why they killed those six men.”

Forty-five minutes later Ali and the other detainees slowly emerged from the cells at the Odebrecht facility and found five detainees shot and killed and one other gasping for breath. Ali said that there was no hope for this man as there was no way to transport him or to get help. Some 50 men came out of that detention facility, and walked about one kilometer from the construction company compound where they had been detained.

Ali walked for a while and eventually found a ride from Tripoli to Zawiya. He left around 8:00 a.m. and arrived home at almost 2:00 p.m. When Ali got home, his family was overjoyed as they thought that he had been killed.

So now we have a sort-of explanation for the five/six prisoners discrepancy, but also multiple witness confirmation of both given cell types, and both incident dates, and both versions of the sixth man (worthy of mention and not). The corroboration is among batches of witnesses who testified together. The discrepancies are between groups who didn't bother co-ordinating stories. So it must've happened twice, by "Human Rights" logic. Anything else would cast doubt on multiple witnesses by trying to decide just which version actually happened.

A Mass Grave
Also, see comments below - video of a possible mass grave exhumed in the area in early September. I suspect there were more than five people buried here, a little ways away from the prison.

Updates, April 4 2012:
The UNHRC’s report of March 2 (download link) discussed this incident, saying "Six detainees, including three medical doctors, were shot a day earlier in a second warehouse, a few hundred metres away. Three of the six died." They have a lower death toll of three, and a different sounding prison -a "warehouse" people were simply locked in, as opposed to numerous solitary confinement cells. "Earlier"and "away" are relative to the Yarmouk massacre of August 23. They have the location sort of right (“an abandoned warehouse which had belonged to a Brazilian Company”), but far closer than the roughly nine kilometers distance it really was. And the date - we have the 21st from Ragai and from Ali, the 24th from Okok, but no one previously cited the 22nd.

On 22 August 2011, in the morning, a detainee interviewed by the Commission heard Sergeant [030] talking on his mobile phone and saying that there were a large number of detainees. [...] [030] told them to execute the doctors and the “officers” and lock the others inside the warehouse.

At around 10-11 am, one of the guards, a soldier from the 32nd (Khamis) Brigade, [040] came to the warehouse and took six detainees outside. After less than an hour the witness heard the sound of shooting.

Settling on the 22nd is exactly as if someone averaged the previous dates. 21 + 21 + 24 = 66, divided by three is 22. Someone decided the truth was between these and told the UNHRC that, which they accepted and passed on as fact. It was corroborated by two of the five guards who fled, who arrived at Yarmouk on the 22nd, saying they had "performed the assignment" at Qasr Ben Ghashir.

Apparently there was no massacre part of the task, just the first6 people shot, deador alive, didn't matter, and the others were simply "locked in," meaning able to open the doors and leave once the guards had departed. (As for the "officers," see update below)

Part of the corroboration is an interesting tidbit for another subject. The quote above, without the [...]:

184. On 22 August 2011, in the morning, a detainee interviewed by the Commission heard Sergeant [030] talking on his mobile phone and saying that there were a large number of detainees. One of the guards recalled how [046] called [030] around 0700hrs , informing him that the thuwar had reached Salahadeen. [030] told them to execute the doctors and the “officers” and lock the others inside the warehouse.

Rebel fighters in Salaheddin, if not the district including  Qasr Ben Ghashir, then the area of the Yarmouk base, as of 0700 on August 22? Despite this being probably a bogus story, there can be bits of true fact imbedded within it, giving us rare glimpses behind the scenes.

Also, a spot of confusion on victims and escapees. Amnesty Int'l’s report of Aug. 26 seems to be quite similar to this same-day report from the Washington Times, citing Mahmoud Okok, a 29-year-old engineer, as the witness who had survived to tell what happened. He says he was arrested in May on suspicion of giving coordinates to NATO. The report said “Early on Wednesday morning [the 24th], guards dragged six men, including two doctors, from solitary confinement and executed them with their Kalashnikovs, according to accounts.” Okok told them “[the] detainees panicked when they realized that the guards were planning to execute them all. They managed to break out of the prison." Compared to Amnesty's “detainees panicked and broke out of their cells fearing they were about to be executed,"they might have talked to the same guy.

They also added, possibly from Okok, this interesting passage:

“One of the doctors is believed to be Ali al-Darrat, from Misratah, who was taken prisoner near the eastern frontline in July and had not been heard from since.”

A now-obscure article run briefly in several Canadian news sites (partial existing re-post here) cited the death of a onetime Ottawa resident, Abdulhamid Darrat, also missing for a long time. His body found in the Khamis shed, and somehow identified, and this fact reported by the 26th, the same day the rebels claim to have first taken the base. It was said he’d been arrested in late May, apparently held at Yarmouk, not the other prison, and killed there with the others. However, as the report said

[Darrat’s daughter] Khadija “said Usama Okok, a family friend who worked with Darrat and was also taken captive in May, told them a different story. Apparently Darrat was beaten and killed only a few days after he was taken captive.”

With two Darrats dead (the doctor and the computer guy) between the two alleged prisons, and two Okoks (Usama the computer guy and Mahmoud the engineer) possibly telling the story of how, this portion of this side-story (which I'm now working into the shed massacre report as a presage) has gotten too confusing to sort out in full. Unless someone helps with that.

Updates May 13:
A while back, Petri Krohn found an excellent resource (see comments below); the Maktoobblog had a report from early on August 26 from a "correspondent" in Qasr Ben Ghashir (QBG). This lists six victims, four of them military officers and two doctors. Roughly translated from Arabic, it seems to say:

Six bodies of martyrs were recovered by the fifth column at the location of the Brazilian company's corporate complex in Qasr bin Ghashir.

The names:


a) Brigadier M'Hamed Aldberza – "العميد امحمد الدبرزي"

b) Brigadier Mohammed Al-Massoud – "العميد امحمد الاسود"

c) Colonel Dr. Uh Mahmoud – "عقيد محمود دراه"

d) Colonel Miftah Futaisi – "عقيد مفتاح الفطيسي"

e) Dr. Ali Alzerat – "الدكتور على الظراط" – [the correspondent's father] Parents were made mockery of by the battalions at the moment of arrest. ...the battalions slapped and humiliated in front of the people of Qasr bin Ghashir, may Allah have mercy on him.

f) Dr. Omar Salhoba – "الدكتور عمر سلهوبه

Thanks to Petri for setting me straight on f). Google translate gave a last name spelling Zleoppe, but that's an alternate and quite different transliteration for the name otherwise rendered Salhoba/Salhouba, as his brother Nasser Salhoba gave when talking to Robert F. Worth (see below).

 One familiar name appearsfor e): "Alzerat my father, Dr. Ali" 
By the d-dz-z connection, "Alzerat" is apparently Al-Darat, the correspondent's own father. This is apparently not his Ottawa-based daughter; it's posted by (auto-translated) Ketbhaadel Alriqiei, on August 26, 2011 time: 3:33.

As an aside until I understand the meaning, five more names are listed -taking Petri's auto-translation:

The names of the dead from [Mnfdan (?)]:



1) Mohamed Abdel-Qader Tagouri –"محمد عبد القادر التاجوري" – a police officer known as a keeper over Alsberati.

2) Abdul Salam Altarhuni–
3) Wajdi Zawi – "وجدي الزاوي
4) Ibrahim Allohh Tagouri – "ابراهيم اللوشة التاجوري"
5) Hamza Al-Surmani [Google gives Abmana - thanks to Hurriya for correcting me]  – "حمزة الصرماني" – follower of Mohamed Mansour Dou

Update: I still don't feel like I understand what "from Mnfdan" means, but Hurriya helps, pointing to a video (#21 on Petri's Libyan Rebels playlist) where it's associated with the Al-Andalus neighborhood (Hay Andalus). This is supposedly a higher-class neighborhood where regime loyalists were known to live, supposedly attacked by prisoners from Abu Salim released when NATO bombed the facility's gates. The Andalus aspect is worth a separate post I just created.

Robert Worth, in a recent New York Times Magazine article (analyzed here), wrote of a doctor named Omar Salhoba, aged 42, killed at "the hangar" on late August. His name appears on the above list, and again he's grouped with another doctor and four officers. A cousin of his alleged executioner, Marwan, was told "‘Your cousin killed six very qualified people whom Libya will need, two doctors and four officers."

 But many details in Worth's report suggest that he's supposed to be a prisoner at Yarmouk, not Qasr Ben Ghashir. These six were given as the first killed among many at one location, as opposed to the maximum number killed at the other. As Mr. Worth wrote: "It was Marwan who shot Omar and the other five victims first; the other two guards fired only after Marwan emptied two clips from his AK-47." Were the two clips used against only those six? Who else did they shoot afterwards at this place where, it was previously said, 50-70-100 other prisoners walked away unharmed after four to six killings?

Omar was specified as one among the "prisoners at the Yarmouk military base, where perhaps the most notorious massacre of the Libyan war took place..." Marwan was one of the guards at Yarmouk who  "were perfectly open about their roles at Yarmouk." Asked by his interrogator (Dr. Omar's brother, Nasser Salhoba) about the six, he suggested they were part of a much larger collection of victims in "the hangar," sounding like the famous Yarmouk ones:

Nasser: “During all that month after Tripoli fell, did you think about the six people you executed?” 
Marwan: “I did think about them and also about the prisoners who were killed and burned in the hangar.” 
Nasser: “But this was different. You executed these six people yourself."

Before killing these first six, Marwan said, “we brought them from the hangar and put them in a small room." Is "the hangar" the same in both cases? Unclear.

Nothing in the article places the prisoner Omar at QBG by name, and that second prison isn't named at all, despite the escape of one Worth's main subjects from that locale (Jamal Al-Ragai is back, this time a higher-level commander yet with political ambitions, and now called "Jalal Ragai").

But neither is it clear at all Nasser's legendary brother was is now being claimed as a victim of the shed massacre. That notorious crime was on August 23, as Worth duly notes. But he says Omar was killed, wherever he was killed, on the 24th, as a result of "the events of Aug. 24, when [Marwan] executed Omar and the other five men." Of course, it was Ragai who had first used the date August 21 for his bizarre escape, so what this date refers to is ... confused.

 It has been generally reported that both sites were run by the Khamis brigade, with soldiers and prisoners going back and forth. But the location and date of a person's execution can only put them at one or the the other. In the end, QBG wins, with Worth's article merging the two into a general Yarmouk prison, with two branch offices, and two incidents muddled into one. Omar the doctor was revered at Yarmouk for helping the injured. But "whenever they were tortured, they would be brought to his cell so he could treat them.” QBG had cells, not Yarmouk (except in the earliest reports when the locale wasn't yet decided)

Marwan explained that the Yarmouk prison commander, a man named Hamza Hirazi, ordered him by phone to execute six prisoners, including Omar and several officers who had been arrested for helping the rebels. “We brought them from the hangar and put them in a small room,” he said when I pressed him for more details. “The killing happened with a light weapon. We closed the door and left.” 

Such order reportedly came down to the Qasr Ben Ghashir prison (from Haziri/Hirazi?), but not the Yarmouk one, where the alleged order was to kill everyone. 17 soldiers, not 4 officers or any doctors, were reported taken out of the Yarmouk hangar first, by two alleged survivors (Fathallah Al-Ashter and Ali Hamouda) who spoke together to Orla Guerin. [OG] No others report anything remotely similar to this at Yarmouk.

The neighbors enter the "massacre" site

May 8, 2012

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

As more evidence emerges, the Khamis Brigade shed “massacre” site is starting to look more and more like Schliemann's Troy – which turned out to be but one of nine different archaeological layers spanning three millenia.

There seems to be three different "massacres" or episodes of violence that differ by location, ethnic makeup, and level of decomposition of the bodies. One of them is the charred bodies in the shed; most likely a morgue. Another layer are the black bodies outside the shed.

The recently discovered amateur video from the shed compound adds a third layer, which may represent the very last chapter in the violent events at the shed.

The video is filmed on August 26, in the twilight, a few minutes after sunset at 19:40 local time. It shows a group of local people from the neighborhood exploring the compound. None of the people are armed, one man in a traditional dress is carrying a pickax, evidently for self protection. A fire is seen still burning in the side chamber of the shed.

The atmosphere must be extremely tense; not so because of the smoldering bodies in the shed, but because of the two fresh victims that lie in the center of the compound and thus dominate the scenery. The men are clearly civilian, they carry none of the visual indications or uniform that would label them rebels or loyalist soldiers. In fact, their dress suggests they are two locals unfortunate enough to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

These two victims  represent an urgency and immediacy not seen in any of the other evidence. If the two men were shed massacre victims, as the rebel narrative would suggest, why were they not carried back into the shed along with the other escapee bodies and burned with the rest?

The two men are never seen in any of the media reports from the shed; they appear in a set of three photographs by Seamus Murphy (available trough photo agencies) as they are being loaded on a flat-bed truck in the morning of August 27th, and are possibly briefly seen in the background in the Sky news report by Stuart Ramsay, as the truck speeds away through the open gate.

From the state of the bodies – As seen on the August 26th video – it is possible to reconstruct the preceding events and deduce who killed the two men, when and how.

Victim number #2, The Crawler lies in front of the shed.

He may be dead, but he has yet to bite the dust. 

(composite view)

A young man lies in the sand in front of the shed – identified as #2, The Crawler in the list of exterior victims. He is still holding his body upright by his upper arms. His head is resting atop his right forearm. In the sand we see signs of crawling. A path of footsteps is just starting to form around him.

From the position of the body alone, it is possible to see that his death happened recently, possible less than an hour ago. He may be dead, but he has yet to bite the dust.

In the photos from the morning of August 27th we see that his face is all covered by sand, the result of a long contact with the ground.

The body is totally undisturbed. The locals have not checked if he was still breathing. If he was shot by someone in control of the shed compound – who ever that was – he has not followed through on his intentions and checked if the man needs “finishing off.”

The position of body is another clue. He is lying right in front of the shed, nearly blocking access to it. If any activity was still going on at the shed after his death – killing, burning, moving of bodies – he would have hindered this activity. Yet, no one has kicked him over to his side.

Victim number #3, The Runner has collapsed while

running toward the gate. He has lost both his sandals.

(composite view)

Another victim, a middle aged man wearing a traditional white shalwar khameez – The Runner, #3 in the list – is lying on the ground some 30 meters away. He has been shot mid sprint, losing his shoes just before losing his balance. One sandal has been thrown several meters, the other is still besides him.

It is not clear what he is running away from. What is clear however is where he is running: toward the gate. Why there, when he could have sought shelter among the numerous vehicles or tried to climb over the wall as all the other alleged shed massacre escapees did. Did he expect the Gaddafi guards to just open the gate for him? Nobody else tried that.

There is only one conclusion that can be drawn. When the man was shot, the gate was open!

In all the war footage we see from Libya, almost every body has been covered by some canvas or cloth by the time it gets captured on film. With all the trash lying around, there certainly was not a lack of covering material. Unattended bodies point to a no man's land. The only explanation that can be given to the two bodies is that they were killed by someone who was not truly in control of the shed compound, most likely from outside the perimeter walls.


From this visual evidence it is possible to reconstruct the preceding events. The fire and the burning bodies alerted the locals to situation in the shed complex. Some came to investigate, possibly along with some rebel entourage. It is likely that the rebels or the group of locals themselves became the target of loyalist snipers in some counteroffensive. Some parts of the Khamis Brigade base are said to have been in loyalist control up to the evening of August 26th. There are a number of places that could have been in loyalist control and give a line sight into the shed compound.

Who ever did the shooting, it clearly caused the party to scatter, leaving behind these two dead.

Media reports

The shooting incident was in fact reported by the media, in a report by Evan Hill for Al Jazeera published at 18:44 GMT on August 26th, 2011.

Rebels tighten grip on Tripoli

Evan Hill in Libya – Last Modified: 26 Aug 2011 18:44

By late Friday, rebel troops using automatic weapons and trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns and field artillery had control of the Abu Salim district and was pushing further south, into the Salaheddin and Tartouk areas.

The fiercest remaining pocket of resistance was in Tartouk, around the barracks of the Khamis Brigade, considered Gaddafi’s best-trained fighting force.

At around 7 pm, a crowd of civilians and rebels near the barracks scattered under rifle fire coming from nearby residential buildings.

Rebels responded in force, turning their guns in the direction of suspected snipers and blasting chunks out of the buildings' concrete facades.

More loyalist fire came from other directions and the barracks, indicating that rebels were still battling for control of one of the final bastions of Gaddafi's military power in the capital.

The report does not specify the exact location “around the barracks,” but the “crowd of civilians” could only have been drawn to this danger zone by the smoldering bodies.

The event is also described by Salem al-Farjani, vice chair of the Libyan "National Missing Persons Commission" in his cameo role as shed massacre witness Dr. Salim Rajub. "Dr. Salim" must  be considered an extremely unreliable witness. Unless he truly happens to live 200 meters away from the shed, his testimony amounts to perjury. What he seems to be doing, is repeating and translating testimony of genuine witnesses and alleged escapees, and passing it on in first person as his personal experience. As with any oral tradition, the story may be accurate in its details, but the general context, in this case the dates, may be totally wrong. One would expect that previous nights shooting incident and the two victims would weight heavily in what the locals have to say. Yet, when retold by Dr. Salim none of this seems to make it into the narrative.

To get to the bottom, one must twist Salim's words to extract from them the original survivor testimony. This is how I interpret Dr. Salim Rajub.

We're but 5, 10 people, we, we want to come here to see what's happening. And then when we just come by near, we found some snipers there, above that (pointing) and they're start shooting. So we went back, right? after one hour or so, everything is quiet. And there were about three people, injured.

Next day morning [August 27th] we are tried to come. We find some [rebel] militias here who are carrying this guns on the cars and then they told us please go back or otherwise we will search you

Salim Rajub is pointing at the batching tower in the ARA cement factory across the street. This must be the testimony of someone who was in the shed compound at the time of the shooting. If he had only seen the shooting from some other vantage point, it would be difficult for anyone to point out the structure with such confidence.

In the end we may never know who was shooting and from where. This becomes irrelevant. What is important is that we can identify the victims and their time of death.

Interpretation

...to be continued.

New Shed Massacre Video!

April 18, 2012
last update May 5

<< The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre After all the material we've been over regarding the Khamis Brigade shed massacre, we still haven't seen it all. Just now Felix alerted me to this Rebel amateur video that predates all others and has whole bloody clues the others lack.

ثوار الهضبة يدخلون كتيبة خميس ليكتشفوا المجزرة

Posted by Batruna August 29, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF_yCX5ffCc


Word for word title translation, proper order: Rebels the plateau entering battalion Khamis to discover the massacre. More intelligible: Rebels (of?) al-Hadhbah (road, on which the Yarmouk base sits?) enter the Base (Katiba) of Khamis to discover the massacre. These people look kind of like locals, possibly rebel fighters, but not armed at the moment. Neither do they seem nervous about remaining loyalists. It might've been in rebel hands for a day or longer prior to this. It was apparently filmed shortly after sunset (about 7:45 to maybe 8pm) on Friday, August 26. We had previously seen no video or photos or anything from that day. Rebels claim it was the first day, sometime at night, or even the next morning, when they first held the base and could enter. In actuality the video could be from one of the days prior even to that, but I find that unlikely. What matters are the various obvious clues it can't be the dates we've looked at before.

The red thing (gas can?) isn't under the ladder yet, something that happened 10-11 am on the 27th (see Exterior imagery chronology).

Of note is the open fire flaming away in the side-chamber, seen in the first seconds and again at 1:00. One thing to note is that these are rebels not handling weapons, or rebel-affiliated locals - ostensibly good people. They just found ostensible victims of a Gaddafi massacre, horrifically set alight, and still burning. No one seems interested in putting them out. Open flames in the main chamber are over by this time. The total darkness inside testifies to that, but doesn't give us much view of what the smoke was doing (an issue of great interest examined here)

There are three dead bodies laying about that weren't there later. Well, they were all seen once more, a bit later, in three photos by Seamus Murphy/VII images, but then gone. A body laid just outside, between the main and side chamber doors seems to have died while crawling. The sand around him and along his path looks pink. By his apparent light skin and clothing, he's the left victim of the two laid out on a truck bed the following morning, as seen in this photo.

The body on the right, extremely bloodied and wearing a Shalwar Khameez, is apparently also seen in this video. I thought he was black, but perhaps not (is that a hint of pink, as well as red, where his face would be?) What must be his body is shown out in the middle of the dusty yard at 1:26, face-down, one shoe nearby.

The other body, burned face, extremely bloodied, shown being dragged from one truck to another here and here, is shown at 0:35 inside the truck he's later pulled from, face down in a pool of blood. His right arm looks tortured. More on this poor guy later...

The mattress victims are also shown, about as later, at 1:09. The bound-feet victim is sporting a longer stretch of green rope than we've seen, and a lot of things in their area are arranged differently. There is a splash of fresh-looking blood (?) next to the broomstick that I don't think is visible later. Much of the graffiti is there already. This often accompanies rebel orgies of bloodletting.

April 19: The green truck is noteworthy, not there earlier than this or later. It's got capacity, possible refrigeration, and might do for transporting bodies. The company doesn't probably matter much, but any Libyans recognize the logo and what that company's known to ship? Cold things?

Petri, in comments, was saying this is the most significant new clue. I thought maybe until just now. When I re-number and re-organize the dead outside the shed, the body I'll have a #1is the ugly burnt face one. Some real insane Gaddafi brutality was done to that guy. Again, I've said he was black, and I still say the hair suggests, actually a mixed-race person with some African blood. Perhaps too light to pass for "mercenary." The slight overweight to me suggests an middle-aged man, so perhaps a commander at the base, stripped to his undershirt. He had special treatment - the video shows him in a pool of blood, soaked around the neck area (slit throat?), right arm splayed out, looking discolored and twisted, likely tortured, forearm cut just below the elbow perhaps. The skin of his left shoulder, seen in the morning, besides varying from burnt raw to toasted dry, also also suggests serious bruising beneath. This guy was beaten all about, it seems.

Below a before and after.

I've enhanced two stills of different exposure to show what this video best can, left. I tried "levels" to salvage some details in the dark, but there wasn't much to save, sorry. This is before, late on August 26. To the right is the same body the next morning. What seems to be lacking theday before is a burnt face and neck. Cheeks look smooth and normal color. Shoulder looks normal. Next morning his shoulders were burnt and cracked in an odd way, and his face rendered lobster-red and crusted charcoal gray with bits of boiled-out eyes. I think we can say he probably didn't die from that, blessedly. But it looks like he might've been "necklaced" with a burning tire around his head. He'd have to be propped upright, and the truck should have smoke stains after...  Note the slit throat - bottom middle - this might have been done to obscure (but it failed)

Clearly, the rebels were in charge of his body when this apparently happened.

More stills and notes:

The fire burning still in the side-chamber. Foreground, outside victim #1, the crawler.

Man with a pick walks by, coming from the direction of the toppled wall around outside victim #7. Is there white powder from those pulled down bricks on the pick? What was that all about anyway? (green "Star" refrigerated truck visible)

A gathering of men in the compound's southwest corner. Note the yellow-sided rebel fighter truck (Misratan?). As the camera approaches, they end the discussion and start dispersing.

The shed interior, main chamber, yields little. There is no visible smoke rising even in the fornt portion we can see, when there would be in the morning. It's just not good enough resolution to be sure they're done smoldering here. We can see two skulls near the front. On the right, up against the wheel rim, is body #15, according to my previous, intensive, mapping of the dead (article, graphic alone). By that, there is no skull in the left position in later images. This appears also to be attached to a body, perhaps the one I numbered 11, which was, coincidentally, filmed by Sky News only (that I've noticed) and removed for all later views. But it would have to be flipped around. Or it's another body by #11, making at least two from right there, obstructing the media's left-hand walkway, that were removed.

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
graphic images large. For the rest,
right-click, new window

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?