See-Through Salem: Arrested?

May 22, 2012
Last update June 4/5

<< See-Through Salem {Masterlist}

I thank Hurriya for this tip on a new development reported by the Green Libyan Facebook group "شباب ليبيا الأحرار علي الفيس بوك لنشر الحقائق من أجل ليبيا الغد" [Libyan Liberal Youth on Facebook to spread the facts for Libya's Future?] and nowhere else I've seen.

  It's a photo showing armed men in semi-military and civilian clothes carrying a chubby, short, pale-bellied man across a bridge. One wields a club-like object in a seemingly threatening way, and others carry rifles. The attached info, in Arabic, then English Google translation.

 مرتزقة الناتو يضربون ويجرون طبيب في مركز طربلس الطبي _____________________________________________ هذه الصورة ليست في سجن أبوغريب و ليست في معتقل غوانتانامو... !! هذه الصورة في مركز طرابلس الطبي وهكذا تمت معاملة الدكتور "سالم الفرجاني" بعد حضوره لإدارة المركز لاتمام إجراءات التسليم و الاستلام, هذه هي ليبيا الجديدة هذه هي الديمقراطيه هذه هي العدالة وحقوق الأنسان التي وعدوا بها الشعب وخدعوا بها العالم في اوضح صورها وبأيدي من يسمون باللجنة الامنيه العليا المؤقته طربلس

 Auto-translated: NATO mercenaries beating and dragging a doctor at the Tripoli Medical Center _____________________________________________
 This photo is not in the prison of Abu Ghraib, not at Guantanamo Bay ... !! This image in the Tripoli Medical Center, and so has the treatment of Dr. "Salem Ferjani" after attending a management center to complete the procedures for delivery and receipt, this is the new Libya This is the democracy of this is justice and human rights that were promised the people, deceived by the world in the clearest images and the hands of the so-called Committee Supreme Security temporary Tripoli
---
See-through Salem, the transparent fixer of rebel war crimes, fake witness (aka Dr. Salim Rajab/Rajip/Rajub), manager of other poor-performing and over-used fake witnesses, and the NTC's former co-chair of the national missing persons commission, chronicler of Gaddafi crimes, crusader for bereaved familes and the truth, important contact and evidence-gatherer for human rights groups, the UN, and the ICC. Allegedly, now, arrested and dragged out of his workplace by forces ostensibly loyal to the NTC / prevailing NATO-backed militia force.

 Why? Did the NTC suspect he's been pranking them, being way too obvious on their dime and discrediting them more than necessary? For the record, I have wondered if he was doing this on purpose to discredit the NTC with his antics. I think he has done that a bit, with help from me and other site members/contributors. But in reality, he's not much worse than most of the people given the delicate and almost impossible task of fooling people like us. The rebel crime-fixers are all transparent to differing degrees (the other Dr. Salem (Qasr) at AbuSalim trauma hospital, for example). This guy was probably trying to help, just like all the others, and is only an idiot who lacks nuance and discretion.

He should not be killed, tortured, or even dragged out like a criminal like this for being an idiot. If there's another specified crime he's being detained for, I do hope the authorities will publicly announce it.

 I have left some comments, Google Arabic, at that page asking for more information. If I get any more details, from there or anywhere, I'll pass it on here. For now, a blown-up detail of the photo. The resolution is not adequate to tell much in this zoomed-out view, but that could be Dr. Al-Farjami, and the Libyan youth say it is.

May 23: Still awaiting information. Additional postings:

Rebel posting, no arrow, but snowflakes (?) http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?id=196059987096192&l=21096e7d8a&pid=1000592
Auto-translated caption suggests more sympathy to the arrest as lawful: Tripoli Medical Center - some of the counted on "Higher Security Committee" Apply (the law) to the doctor [Salem Ferjani] as shown in the picture

Un-marked, with gunmen named?: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=467993616560638&set=a.217452284948107.69715.217308438295825&type=3&theater
Auto-translated caption suggests a mundane reason for the arrest: "it is Dr. Libby is called d. Salem Ferjani In the Tripoli Medical Center, and Chahdhm carry it assumes Almariz at Abu Ghraib prison, they are members of the Supreme Security Committee of Tripoli, and the story revolves around the minutes of the delivery and receipt of the management of the center and the intransigence of the previous administration in the delivery, although the Ferjani has a mandate from the Ministry of Health to complete the process of receipt."

There are some other reflections, including this tweet from Leo

NATO mercenaries dragging Dr.Salem Ferjani out of the Tripoli medical center: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=337047939701449&set=a.154538474619064.40814.154528817953363&type=1 Thx for your support @matt_vandyke !

I'm not so good with Twitter understanding, but I gather Van Dyke, the pro-rebel journalist/activist was following Leo's stream until he was blocked a few days prior to this arrest. Leo mentions a pro-NTC "Press solidarity" reporting a lot of thing, it seems including this (thanks Petri). http://presssolidarity.net/رئيس-اللجنة-المكلفة-لاستلام-مركز-طراب/
Again, auto translate:

Was yesterday, Monday, Chairman of the Committee in charge of the receipt of the Tripoli Medical Center were attacked by a group, it was said as belonging to the management of the Tripoli Medical Center. According to sources, "news agency solidarity" during an interview that took place between the Director of the Tripoli Medical Center Khaled, Chairman of the Committee conferred upon, receiving center, a number of armed personnel to manage the medical center by dragging and dragging them to a vehicle and taken to an unknown location. Picked up and reported the existence of separate Chairman of the Committee of the Supreme Security Committee. And tried to "news agency solidarity" Contact manager Tripoli Medical Center and Chairman of the Supreme Security Committee and Security Committee of Tripoli and the Ministry of the Interior; to see fuller details about the incident to no avail. News Agency of solidarity - a special

A comment from there adds... something.

Certificate of debt I am the presence of the position the person my father and then his arrest was one of the ousted Imran melons and Alqirdafa has jumped on the doctors and staff at the center with the knowledge that our parents Qdu him are the military police after he himself Bstdaahm and massage for the purpose of the threat and after the submission of documents from one employee to the elements Military Police condemn this person is called a Salem Ferjani Anao was a member of the Revolutionary Committees and the former was arrested by military police and thank you ..

WOW
Update, June 4/5
So, Did that just say he had been part of the Gaddafi-era committees that basically ran things? And he was allowed to take a leading role in the clownish seach for the "truth" of Gaddafi's crimes? That would support all-too-clearly my stranger suspicions here.

The ambiguity we began with is no more. I just got a tip from an astute reader that, yes, this is Dr. Salem. The Guardian has just yesterday reported on it and wow, is this getting interesting. He was beaten and, by some definition, "tortured," but still alive. There's sudden controversy over the identified NTC thug unit that arrested him. He's reportedly been threatened not to speak out, but is speaking out, and is thus reportedly in hiding in Tripoli. I do hope he's picked a good spot, can lay low and keep quiet for the moment, or get away entirely, and let the rest of us hash over his S.O.S. Check this out:
Libya sees claims of beatings and human rights abuses as elections near By Chris Stephen, the Guardian, June 3, 2012.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/03/libya-security-force-kidnapping-surgeon

Some quotes:

Members of an elite unit set up by the Libyan government to rein in the country's rival militia forces have been accused of kidnapping and severely beating one of the country's foremost surgeons. The abduction appears further evidence that 10 months after taking over, Libya's new interim government has failed to curb human rights abuses, and is seemingly incapable of controlling either the militias or its own security force. It comes as the country faces its first national elections later this month – a key test of whether Libya is heading towards democracy or violent secessionism. Salem Forjani, a heart surgeon working for the health ministry, was seized on 17 May when he went to Tripoli medical centre – the city's largest hospital – on orders of the health minister to remove the director, who was accused of links with the Gaddafi regime.

But Salem allegedly had his own G-link, and it was he who was arrested. Was it some kind of set-up? It seems so. Mr. Stephen continues:

Instead, he was confronted by members of the government's supreme security committee (SSC) waiting in the director's office, who dragged Forjani through the hospital, beating him so badly he lost consciousness in front of horrified staff. A fellow medic photographed Forjani being carried, his shirt off, spreadeagled, down the hospital's ambulance ramp while an SSC soldier threatened to shoot unarmed hospital security staff giving chase.

That's the photo. The world thanks this medic, and the others who tried to help. Continueing:

The SSC troops bundled the doctor into a car and incarcerated him in a base at Naklia, a suburb of Tripoli, where he was beaten and kicked so hard in the groin that he was left with a ruptured testicle. Forjani escaped with his life. But for five days neither his family nor health minister Fatima Hamroush could find him, or even get confirmation he was still alive. Finally, after he had been moved to a second facility, at Tripoli's Mitiga airport, the SSC contacted the health ministry and released him, having failed to charge him with any offence or even explain the reason for his capture.

I have a good guess for the reason. It's one that, if true, would remain unstated. On the surface, he's been the essence of anti-Gaddafi, and was so at least from February 2011, he says keeping careful track of what was really happening as the dead and injured came through TMC, keeping files to prove it. (It's the intentional clown theory, but there are others at least as likely that would also be left unstated. There can be little legitimate reason to do this.)

Mr. Stephen reports moves are underway to keep the man safe. "Diplomats are quietly lobbying Libya's government to issue a guarantee of safety for Forjani." Guarantee? Ha. A call returned, and a statement of sympathy, maybe.

Sorry, can't stop quoting:

Now the surgeon is in hiding in Tripoli, having been warned of reprisals if he speaks out. "I don't know how this could happen, this is a new Libya," he told the Guardian. "I kept asking them, who are you, why are you doing this?" 

What has shocked many Libyans, with the photograph now going viral among Facebook users, is that Forjani is a leading light among human rights groups. He sits [sic?] as an expert on the government's missing persons commission and chaired an investigation into a massacre of prisoners by the Gaddafi administration, a report distributed to the United Nations and the international criminal court.

We'll have our own report on that subject fitting that description quite soon. One more update needed, obviously.

His kidnap and torture, and the silence with which it has been met by the government, has left many Libyans fearing for the future. "This is kidnapping," said his brother, Salah, an official with a Libyan human rights group. "It [the SSC] is more powerful than the police and that is the intention."

"It was not supposed to be this way," Stephen continues, explaining the SSC, which I hadn't really heard of. It was established under the interior ministry "as a means for the state to gain control of security from Libya's patchwork of militias." Reportedly drawing its members "from both former rebels and disbanded Gaddafi-era internal security units, has become a law unto itself," one now widely feared in the capitol especially. The hospital's director (see below), and a Health ministry official have been threatened by the SSC, they say, who used their abuse of Al-Farjani as a demonstration.

The NTC "government" hasn't arrested anyone or started an investigation. Stephen reports, the interior ministry refuses to return calls, and an NTC representative cancelled a meeting to discuss it.

Last month, the United Nations special representative, Ian Martin, raised concerns at the UN security council in New York. "The interim mechanism called the supreme security committee, with some 60,000 to 70,000 fighters registered, had, to some extent, provided a unified command," his report states. "It was essential, however, that the committee not become a parallel security."

Yet this is precisely what critics claim the SSC has become. When her official was kidnapped, health minister Hamroush wrote to interim prime minister Abdurrahim el-Keib and president Mustafa Abdul Jalil, begging for help. "We have had no answer," said health ministry official Hussam Bubash.

The mystery of this episode is just mysterious. Consider the director of the TMC, where Al-Farjani ran his alleged operation all those months, whom Farjani was sent to relieve (replace?). Dr Khalid Urayath stands accused of Gaddafi loyalism, and of squandering money on trips abroad (outside of Libya? Gasp!) for hospital staff. But he can't be removed, for some reason. He says he in fact tutored Muammar Gaddafi's mysterious daughter Hannah, explaining "The best cardiovascular surgeon in the country is me, very humble to say it. You cannot say no to the Colonel." He's also "a fellow of the UK's Royal College of Surgeons," the report adds, who just last month "secured an offer of computer equipment from the British Libyan business council."

Dr Khalid Urayath – the director of Tripoli medical centre, whom Forjani was sent to relieve – remains unrepentant. He is refusing to step down, saying he is supported by hospital staff and this makes irrelevant the wishes of the health minister. Forjani's kidnap came during the fourth attempt this year by health ministry officials to order Urayath to step down. When he refused, Forjana, acting on instructions from the health minister, called the general prosecutor's office to ask for help from law enforcement officers.

Did they set him up and have him call the thugs on himself? Again, they were waiting for him "in the director's office" when he got there. The SSC thugs working with the alleged loyalist? (What had happened during the previous failed efforts of an alleged loyalist sent to get rid of an accused loyalist?)

"He was calling on armed forces," said Urayath. "You know why they [the SCC] used force on him? Dr Salem (Forjana) was trying to escape down the stairs – he was trying to escape. They took him in care and took him to the site of the SSC, they put him there, they interrogated him."

This guy sounds off. They took Salem in and beat his gonads to a pulp because he tried to escape? The thing he wanted to escape from, perhaps connected to the interrogation, the why behind the why, is left unexplained.

...following Urayath's refusal to step down, the health ministry's plans to reform a health service left in chaos by the Gaddafi dictatorship are in tatters.

Yes, blame the "brutal 42-year rule" when all the sickeningly shitty parts of it are only surfacing the last year or so. There will surely be more news on this, and I'll try to stay abreast of it.

See-Through Salem: Al Farjani Hits the Big Time

January 7, 2012
(incomplete - last edits March 28)

<< See-Through Salem: Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub? 

UN

By November 2 at the latest, our missing persons and massacres expert, Dr. Salem al Farjani, was the acting chairperson of the National Missing Persons Commission. On this day, none other than UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visited the shed massacre site,  and his tour guide was Dr. al Farjani. He deciphered for him the large-scale Gaddafi regime massacre he has now been caught lying, and apparently helping others lie, about having witnessed. From a UN press release:

The Secretary-General then visited a mass-grave site near the capital and met with the survivors and families of victims of a massacre that had been carried out by the Khamis Brigade 

[...]
After being briefed on the incident in the warehouse by Salem al Ferjani, the acting Chairperson of the National Missing Persons Commission, the Secretary-General told the group he was profoundly shocked by what he had seen and heard. He said the perpetrators of all such human rights crimes should be brought to account. [UN]

Hopefully he'll get another shock soon. One photo linked at the PR shows about ten of these survivors Moon met, none of whom looks obviously familiar from the August batch. Another UN photo shows al Farjani himself, full body, standing with Moon inside the warehouse his alter-ego had visited at least once.

We see here that he's not tall, perhaps a bit leaner than before, and sporting the beginnings of a nicely gray beard. This, as we'll see, was the start of his new, famous-and-not-quite Dr. Rajub look, along with always pointing his chin down, eyes up at militia commanders and Koreans alike. It's apparently the chin he's trying to hide more than anything.

I found an account of Moon's visit from the other side at the Facebook page of the association of holocaust survivors of Yarmouk. Google translated from the original Arabic (goofy parts intact):

...the delegation to listen to the survivors of the Holocaust on how to get the crime. The Alovdayda to listen to the demands of the families of the victims and survivors, which was applied material and moral support by UN agencies to the affected people. He also asked the people to open the tomb, which buried the bodies were burnt with the support of the UN discernible DNA samples where it is difficult discernible such samples. Students as well as urban residents unzip frozen funds for the benefit of the Transitional National Assembly in order to be compensation for the victims of crimes of Gaddafi. [any money if it was a TNC crime and these people aren't the real victims?]

Dr. Salem has Ferjani arranging to meet the delegation of the UN victims' families and survivors. And Dr. Salem with Mr. Secretary-General in this regard and has toured the scene of the crime and informed him of what happened in the prison.

The Association thanks all of the Delegation of the United Nations as well as the delegation of the National Commission to identify the bodies [Dr. Salem] and tracing of his interest in this subject.

ICC

An excellent find from contributor Felix will start the other half:

Dr. Salem al Farjani, left, and Luis 
Moreno-Ocampo, right (Nov. 23, 2011)

It's a Reuters video, Dr.Salem al Farjani (left), apparently, giving a guided tour to none other than ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo! The video can be seen here. It's for sale, and the preview is not great, squished format. This is stretched a bit at left, in a cropped view. The video's better than that, the subjects are just in the background, with one other guy's face filling half the screen) It's not around anywhere else I could find easily (I tried the on-screen serial number, and it only refers to this ITN source video and two cached versions of the same page).

The description says:

The International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor visited a military base on the outskirts of Tripoli on Wednesday (November 23) where the charred remains of 53 people were found after the fall of Tripoli to rebel fighters.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who is visiting Libya for talks with authorities after the capture of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, met families of those killed by loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi at the Khamis 32 military base.

Moreno-Ocampo said the ICC was still investigating the alleged crimes committed by Saif al-Islam and other members of the former regime. 

"We are still investigating, that's why I'm here. We are still investigating the crimes and eventually, if there are no security problems, we can pass to them everything we have. Because, in fact, many of them, as today, they are helping us to collect the evidence. So I think it's important to understand for Libya this is crucial, and for our rules, they can do it. But of course all is subject to the ICC judges' authorisation," Moreno-Ocampo told reporters after seeing some of the charred remains.

(skin perhaps, and other charred debris, not the actual bodies, which were removed almost three months prior)

Dr. al Farjani isn't named nor undeniably recognizable here, except in his spot at Ocampo's right side in that charred old shed, like when Moon visited. But this is the first time we can do any voice verification. It's very brief, and he has his back to the camera, just outside the shed. He says the families want the truth about the massacre, and survivors too, and he says it in the exact voice of "Dr. Salim Rajub" speaking in English to Sky News about actually hearing and seeing it happen. And it's probably the voice of "Ahmed al Farjani," the construction worker who sheltered escapee Atiri, right before "Dr. Rajub" brought Atiri to Sky News with him, standing on his right side.

Recall that Dr. Salem told Sky News the ICC and Moreno-Ocampo needed to investigate this Loyalist crime, and the witness he coached, Mustafa el-Hitri, says he saw Khamis personally walk into the compound and give some kind of order just before the massacre.

A Profile Article and Human Rights Consultations
Then there was a December AP article publicizing Dr. al Farjani and his struggle, and his help to Physicians for Human Rights to understand the crime (forthcoming ...) If he's nominated for a nobel prize or some such for his work exposing the "holocaust," that too will be added here.

For now, see the AP article and my post on the PHR report he advised on.

March 28: A video of Moon and Farjani and some victims and family.

Bashir Mohammed at 1:10?

See-Through Salem: Al-Farjani's "Premature Dissolution"

March 19, 2012

<< See-Through Salem {Masterlist}

We have just learned our celebrity faker Dr. al-Farjani has lost his perch helping the NTC figure out who killed who. His much-mentioned (by him) national commission for missing persons recently suffered a mysterious cancellation. Perhaps the problems first publicized here - his activities posing as a witness and coaching other witnesses to create the "facts" he was tasked with finding - contributed. Perhaps they were unrelated. No explanation has been publicly offered.

Previously, we outlined his late-2011 rise to authority in "Free Libya" and attainment of global recognition as the co-chair (and sometimes Deputy chairman) of the highly-relevant-sounding commission. As of mid-February he was mentioned not as a co-chair or deputy chair of anything, but rather “journalist Salem al-Farjani.” He told the Magharebia news service, one year after the civil war was begun, “it was the first time Libya had an occasion to celebrate” and he hoped “that the souls of martyrs won't go in vain.” Same guy? Major qualification just not mentioned?

In mid-March, he was scheduled to give a speech in Geneva sponsored by Swiss group TRIAL (Track Impunity Always). In the interests of holding war criminals accountable, they decided to host “a privileged meeting with Dr. Salem Alferjani, forensic scientist and human rights activist and former Deputy Chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons in Libya,” speaking on “Identifying the Missing: Truth and Accountability in Post-Gaddafi Libya.” [TR] The possible liar and absolver of rebel war criminals was called an esteemed expert in how truth and justice relate to each other.

“With the support of Dr. Salem Alferjani, forensic scientist and human rights activist, TRIAL called for a temporary halt to all excavations… […] Dr. Salem Alferjani has been the Deputy-Chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons in Libya, which was in charge of the exhumation and identification […] Despite the premature dissolution of the Commission, Dr. Alferjani is convinced that the disclosure of the truth regarding these mass graves is the only way to provide the victims’ families with a minimum of justice, thus he is still engaged in the identification of the victims of human rights violations in Libya.”

The truth does in FACT underpin justice, noble convictions aside. That is why he was there from the beginning helping seed lies about the shed massacre, to ensure the rebel/NTC/NATO thugs were NOT held accountable, and loyalists were convicted.

There might be a temptation to write off the whole issue of “See-through Saelm’s” apparent deceit. Engendering that temptation might have been the very idea behind shutting his operation down. However, he and his baggage remain relevant in three important ways.

1) Even besides lectures, the man is still at work, at least according to TRIAL, who related his activities after the Commission’s unexplained end:

“Currently, Dr. Alferjani works together with several local and international NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He is also an important focal point in Libya for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno-Ocampo and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon.”

2) His past work hasn’t disappeared. He touched much (and many) while in charge, shaping a case that might be entirely bogus, a case which in all likelihood stands unchanged.

3) He might be a rare window into how these things work. It does Libya and the Truth no good if someone as deceitful as Dr. al-Farjani is shunted aside and replaced with someone just as crooked but less obvious about it.

See-Through Salem: An Innocent Explanation?

February 16, 2012
(incomplete)

<< See-Through Salem: Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub? 

I just drafted a short interim report on the Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre, drafted first for the consideration of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). In it, I described the apparent deceit of Dr. al Farjani calling himself Dr. Rajub and claiming to be a massacre witness. Speaking to that group, who consulted Dr. al Farjani for their report on the massacre, made me feel compelled to include the following:

There are relatively innocent possible explanations for the apparent deceit of his testifying under a pseudonym (or even two of them), and PHR would be better situated than I to know. Did he mention to PHR that he was also a direct witness to the massacre, who tried to help, but was driven back by snipers? Or is Dr. Rajub supposed to be a different person from him? (that is, did he fail to ever mention that?)

That in turn makes me want to bring it up here for more group thoughts to consider before I finish up the final report. Is it possible, or very likely, that "Dr. Salim Rajub" had a relatively innocent reason for coming into existence? What if he makes some argument to that effect, true or not? If he's always been up-front about his witness activity, that would be a sign of no deception intended. I've never heard him mention it as Dr. Farjani, but I haven't heard a whole lot from him at all.

Is Rajub a False Name Even?
First, is this even a false name? Some Arabs, especially ones connected to this massacre, have rather plastic names that change from one report to the next. Perhaps his name is Dr. Salem Rajub al Farjani?

It's not terribly likely. I found few Internet hits for Libyans of his name in English beyond his recent "professional" work. Some of those refer to a soccer player of the same name. Only one seems to help here: The Arab Society for Plant Protection had its 9th congress organized in al Baida, Libya, 2003. The year before, the 8th Congress had a "Dr. Salem O. El-Ferjani" on the organizing committee, and a "Dr. Salem Omar El-Ferjani" on the fundraising one. He doesn't seem to pop up in later conferences.

He's not a plant science guy, we hear, but a cardiac surgeon perhaps (that remains vague). But the skills he's shown - knowing people, saying things, networking - work great for the committees he's listed on. It could well be him.

So unless his name is Salim Omar Rajub al Farjani, this is not likely a version of his real name at all.

False But Innocent?
But even using a pseudonym can have a non-nefarious explanation. Petri Krohn brought this up in a very open-minded comment a while back.

I do not think you can discount or discredit al-Farjani for not revealing his true name. This happened on August 27th when the Battle of Tripoli was far from over – or if it was, you cannot expect locals to know about it. Dr. al-Farjani had every reason to be worried about his own security, even more so if he truly believed the shed victims were murdered by "Gaddafi" soldiers.

We also have to excuse Dr. al-Farjani for not disclosing his true mission to the base: documenting massacre sites. Living near by is a perfect cover story. In understanding the events we must keep in mind that people meeting the press are often dragged into far more publicity than they vouched for. Also, Sky News might have pressed him into giving a 1st person account of the events of August 23th – he must have seen something, didn't he just say he lives next door.

I gave these thoughts some consideration, but not in enough detail at the time. I've been making a big deal of the shady appearance of the whole thing, and need to re-think it.

Let's imagine the most honest version: he did witness the attack, and returned to the Yarmouk shed to learn and share. Although it rings false, maybe he really is a local and his witness account is true. Certainly the coincidence that this expert on loyalist massacres would happen to live right by and directly witness the worst among them is eyebrow-raising, but it's possible.

So, he returned and happened upon the media feeding frenzy, and perhaps out of fear, gave a false name, and explain how he was a close neighbor who witnessed it.

But here's a problem - if he really is a local who saw it, by saying so he gave his approximate address ("200 meters" from the base). He called himself "Dr. Salem" and mentioned Tripoli Medical Center. Not good ways for a Dr. Salem from TMC to obscure his identity. Adding his distinctive face to this mysterious Dr. Rajub on the news camera certainly sounds unsafe as well, but he did that.

But maybe being a local was part of his cover story along with the name. It's not a very good one, if so, but it would mean he's probably lying about witnessing the massacre, since he explained that with the fact that he's a local. If it's a false story, we can't be sure if he dreamed it up for his own reasons prior to arriving, or improvised on the spot to impress the news crews, as Petri postulated.

As for fear and the war, I think the battle of Tripoli was considered pretty much over by the relevant date. 90% of the capitol was claimed as under rebel control by the 22nd, and Bab al Azizyah was loudly overwhelmed on the 23rd. Both of these were simplifications of the issue, but four days later even Abu Salim was contained, all bases under control and, in my opinion, there should have been little to fear from the coming days from any effective loyalist reprisals.

Further, the vast majority of the witnesses gave full names that, as far as we know, aren't false ones. So, again, fear of Greens as a reasonable motive for dishonesty is possible but not well-illustrated.

As noted above, he showed his face, used half his name and his title, mentioned his workplace, and gave what he said was his rough address. Anyone trying to hide could leave out or changed any of that. He could drop "doctor," or "Salem," or "al Farjani," or all three. He dropped only one of those. (And he might have picked it right back up with Ahmed al Farjani, the unseen 42-year-old local construction worker who took in the same survivor - Mustafa el Hitri/Atiri - that Dr. Salim escorted to the world stage a couple of days later.)

Barely anything of his identity was, in fact, hidden here. So as effective camouflage for any deceit, it also fails, and that itself is a thing I've wondered about. Why be so transparent about it?

There's another possibility that answers a lot of these questions... eh, I'll explain that later.

The Tripoli Massacres: See-Through Salem {Masterlist}

Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub? 
December 15, 2011
last edits May 24, 2012

<<The Tripoli Massacres

I have an old Lockerbie research friend, Eddie, to thank for this tip and the intital research, to which I (and then contributors, via comments here) added a lot. It was thanks to my work he saw the significance when he stumbled across this character Dr. Salem al-Farjani. In two important ways this man may be relevant to our understanding of the mysterious massacres across the capitol in August and September.

First, an Associated Press Article by Vanessa Gera, December 10, explains al Farjani's relevance in "liberated Libya" as a big wheel in the NTC's search for the war's missing and unidentified. He's to specialize in the names without bodies and bodies without names, anonymous corpses in mass graves, from both sides but especially rebel people, since Gaddafi loyalists were the evil killer side. In part, his job will likely be to help the NTC put acceptable identities on the victims of massacres carried out by their own forces - disappearing loyalists, replacing them with more martyrs, made-up if need be, and more black paint for the past.

The governing National Transitional Council has founded a national commission to deal with the matter [of the thousands reported missing]. It is headed by al-Farjani, a cardiac surgeon, and a DNA specialist, Othman Abdul-Jalil [sic].

The DNA part of this "National Missing Persons Commission" can be quite helpful if done right, and I have no cause to doubt the credibility of his co-chair, actually named Dr. Mohamed Othman. But Dr.al Farjani, as we'll see, has known issues.

Dr. Salem's audition for his part of the job, as Gera describes it, was an insurgency-long, life-and-family-endangering, one-man fact-finding mission. On about February 20, “bodies of protesters that were brought to his sprawling 1,200-bed Tripoli Medical Center were seized by Gadhafi forces before their families could recover them." This fiendish behavior has been widely alleged, but never well illustrated. The doc plans to change that, and has for nearly a year now been taking careful note of the cartoonish villainy, even going outside the hospital on "fact-finding missions to the sites of suspected massacres or mass graves." 


Did he take one of these trips, on August 27, to the Yarmouk military base south of town, site of a likely rebel massacre a few days earlier?


Field Work
Now for what the guy looks like, which-aside from the "Dr." part and "Salim" part, and proximity to massacres part, is what caught Eddie's attention: The photograph used in that article was also cited in a news blurb: “In this Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 photo, Dr. Salem al-Farjani, 43, speaks to a militia member as they stand in front of photos of men who went missing during Libya's civil war.” The photograph (cropped view below) shows a man who looks rather similar to another Tripoli-based Dr. Salim/Salem, who spoke to several media outlets in late August about a massacre he treaveled to the site of - though not far, he says.

The largest mass-killing allegation of all, over 150 people killed with guns and grenades, the alleged Khamis Brigade shed massacre with too many witnesses including himself, was right by this doctor's house south of Tripoli, he says. He saw it all happen, he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), Sky News, Anthony Loyd, Human Rights Watch, Liberation, perhaps the New York Times and even more, depending.

The facial similarity between the two is not overwhelming at all, but it is there. On closer inspection (keep reading), it gets better. I see the same distinct hairline, same eyebrows and eyelids, muscular, furrowed brows shading his eyes. I see a consistent long nose, cheeks, chin, and ears. He seems to have lost about ten pounds and grown in his beard between the two images. He could have more of a tan now as well, but the washed-out video (lightened more here) is not too clear. The taste in shirt colors is consistent enough too, if not any major clue.

Faces aside, recall that both men shown above are massacre-obsessed or massacre-witnessing, rebel-assisting Tripoli doctors named Salim/Salem (as given, anyway). What stands in the way of linking the two as one is the different last name, and that we have no reason to believe that Dr. Salim al-Farjani, one of the NTC's top massacre-solving and ID-deciding people, is such a total faker. Other than the fact that he may have been caught faking, known reason or not.

But faces not aside, two further images from between his Fat Elvis and Thin Elvis pahses show the transition. Felix found a valuable Youtube video that sinks it.

لقاء مع الدكتور سالم الفرجاني عضو اللجنة الوطنية للتعرف على هويات ضحايا حرب التحرير

[auto-translate: "A meeting with Dr. Salem Ferjany member of the National Committee to get to know the identities of the victims of the war of liberation"]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1aak3Etl-A

It was posted October 1, so presumably from shortly before that date. I had hoped a video would reveal enough of his voice to make a clear match, but in fluent Arabic Dr. Salem sounds little like Dr. Salim in his halting, funny-sounding English. The raw video is a bit too dark to be sure, but with enhancement (adjustment of "levels" in Photoshop - is that "gamma?" -may have over-done it, sorry), the man's face is uncanny in its similarity to Rajip's, as opposed to his own about two months later. 

As  a nail in the coffin goes, contributor Petri Krohn notes (in the comments here), and the image above confirms, both men have a distinctive gap in their lower teeth, apparently just left of center (our right). I suspect that upon seeing something, perhaps the October video, someone alerted the doctor how much he resembled the guy on the news. It was perhaps this that spurred him to start jogging heavily and to stop shaving, in the hopes no one else would notice.

More images: Dr. Rajub speaking to AFP, late in the afternoon, from a Spanish-dubbed broadcast. Tooth gap visible here too. Note the blue alligator shirt Dr. Rajub wears here, as when speaking to Sky News earlier (above).

Interesting then, as if we needed it at this point, is Dr. al-Farjani wearing the same shirt, when speaking about the "more than 1,700" prison massacre, on September 26. From an Al Arabiya video. He's starting a mustache it seems, suggesting the October 1 video was some days or weeks old as it was posted.

The Doctor's Dad
The Gera article metions how with even his wife out of the loop, the doctor's "only confidant was his father, who would travel with him on fact-finding missions to the sites of suspected massacres or mass graves. He hoped the presence of a 70-year-old man would make him seem less suspicious to Gadhafi’s men."

Survivor Fathallah Abdullah
- the doctor's dad?

It is noteworthy that among the too-many alleged miraculous escapees, there is one rather toothsome 70-year-old man who turned up at the massacre site and spoke with Bild (Germany) and BBC. This was on August 27, as "Dr. Salim Rajub" was there. He was named Fathallah Abdullah al Ashter, as given, and said he escaped but lost his three sons in the onslaught, none of them named Salem or Salim. It could be true, I suppose.

Further Adventures of See-Through Salem


See-Through Salem: "Dr.Salim" Speaks, Coach Salem Manages
The man called Rajub, on Aug. 27: What he said, to whom, and how he interacted with the other "witnesses," as seen on camera. Plenty of speculation, but no shortage of decent evidence to support it. Was he the puppet master here?

A "Dr. Salim," a "Mr. al Farjani, and a Key Escapee.
The link "Dr. Rajub" showed in apparently coaching escapee witness Atiri/el Hitri brings to point the question whether the Dr. is also Mr. Ahmed al Farjani, who says he sheltered the escapee. This, the el Hitri link, and their teamwork on getting this story to the International Criminal Court  are explored here.

See-Through Salem: Rise of a Massacre Masseuse
Government service, fact-finding about loyalist crimes tasked to the fact-seeding, fact-finding team of Dr. al Farjani and himself.

Al Farjani Hits the Big Time
Ramsay and Loyd and perhaps Worth were only the start for Dr. al Farjani's clandestine "fact-finding" missions at the Yarmouk shed. Within a month he was in the government's committees to solve massacres, and by November he was returning again and again to the massacre site with more influential people yet. On November 3, it was UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. On the 23rd, it was ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The last has a video finally with the tour guide, wearing a jacket if not a tie, speaking in Dr, Rajub's English.

Amnesty By Way of Fakery
A video, a good one (youtube link), covering all the above plus faker Bashir and another faker working with him in a team effort. Please note as the video wasn't able to that the confronted soldier therein is also apparently fake.


Al-Farjani's "Premature Dissolution"
So it seems he's now NOT working for the NTC, but still remains relevant.

See-Through Salem Arrested?
It seems so, at Tripoli Medical Center, and he was carrried away by armed men. The details of why, by whom, and what next remain unclear.


Standing Questions / Troubling Implications
If he's not able to skate through with arguments that he didn't lie, what are the proper charges for the Libyan people to file for this crime against reality? Because behind this apparent deceit is a likely rebel massacre it was designed to conceal, and in front of it is the very real danger that the good doctor was hired to do much more of the same.

So ... Dr. Salem al-Farjani wants to help since “people are suffering. They want to know the fate of their loved ones.” There are families attached to the approximately 150-180 government soldiers and/or civilian others, many alleged "mercenary" types, who were apparently slaughtered at or near the Yarmouk military base. They never turned up acknowledged as captive, dead, or alive, though some said they "fled like rats" to nowhere in particular. From the timeline clues, one could fairly surmise that they were killed at their stations by NATO bombs and/or the Misrata Brigades, before the latter started burning their corpses after capturing the brutalized base late on the 23rd - the specified date of the massacre (see the link, entry "Wednesday, 6:15 am").

Will Dr. Farjani be helping solve that one, after fire has erased the best direct clues who the victims really were? After Dr. Rajub went there and pretended to see the vanishing soldiers themselves kill the same number of perhaps invented 'rebular' Libyan guys? After two dozen uninjured escapees, partly shepherded by the doctor, swore they escaped somehow from as many different versions of the massacre?

Our subject alleged regime use of acid to erase clues - fire was known to be used to erase clues at Yarmouk, and the rebels were apparently in control when the fire was set. Dr. al-Farjani might have been there when the cover-story was inserted in the place of those lost clues. He may have helped seed the lie himself, in a fact-making mission to a massacre site. And he even says Libya "won’t have reconciliation" until his work is enshrined in the nation's new legal history.

I must say this closing line from from the Gera piece is extremely reassuring as to how his commission will perform:

Officials stress that they want to help find the missing on all sides.

“We don’t discriminate,” said Hatem el-Turki, the head of the Libyan Society of the Missing.

See-Through Salem: Rise of a Massacre Masseuse

January 29, 2012

<< See-Through Salem: Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub?

Shortly after he visited the Khamis Brigade massacre shed, put on his "Dr. Salim Rajub" performance for the world's media (and helped the survivors put on their own), Dr. Salem al Farjani was hired by the interim NTC government. Perhaps specifically to repeat the feat more officially and nationwide, he was made co-chairman and sometimes acting chairman of the National Missing Persons Commission, dedicated to finding which of the dead and missing were Gaddafi regime victims. Judging by his performances so far, he will probably help find that all of them were.

Just when he took on this role is not entirely clear. But less than a month after his Rajub act, on September 25, he was speaking as a member of the government committee to prove the long-alleged regime atrocity of the "Abu Salim Prison massacre." He expressed certainty that the non-human bones found near the prison in August were of the alleged 1,270 victims (or "more than 1,700," as he rounded the number up).

(to be fixed-up later)

A recent Associated Press Article by Vanessa Gera, December 10, mentions al-Farjani's relevance in "liberated Libya." He's a big wheel in the NTC's search for the war's missing and unidentified, the anonymous corpses in mass graves, from both sides but especially rebel people, since Gaddafi loyalists were the evil killer side. In part, his job will likely be to put acceptable identities on the victims of massacres carried out by their own forces - disappearing loyalists, replacing them with more martyrs, made-up if need be, and more black paint for the past.

The governing National Transitional Council has founded a national commission to deal with the matter [of the thousands reported missing]. It is headed by al-Farjani, a cardiac surgeon, and a DNA specialist, Othman Abdul-Jalil [sic].

The DNA part of this "National Missing Persons Commission" can be quite helpful if done right, and I have no cause to doubt the credibility of his co-chair, actually named Dr. Mohamed Othman. But something tells me this is added just to sound fancy and lend finality to decisions made in other ways, with a careful system of endemic sample mix-ups. True science will likely have little effect on the process, aside from the sheen of hard science. 

Dr. Salem's audition for his part of the job, as Gera describes it, was an insurgency-long, life-and-family-endangering, one-man fact-finding mission. On about February 20, “bodies of protesters that were brought to his sprawling 1,200-bed Tripoli Medical Center were seized by Gadhafi forces before their families could recover them." This fiendish behavior has been widely alleged, but never well illustrated. The doc plans to change that, and has for nearly a year now been taking careful note of the cartoonish villainy, even going outside the hospital on "fact-finding missions to the sites of suspected massacres or mass graves." As Eddie noted, the good doctor has to have seen a lot of the same shady things we have - probable rebel crimes pinned transparently on the villified, whipping-boy regime. He doesn't seem to have noticed, if so.

The surgeon took down the names of as many slain fighters as he could before they were hauled off by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, presumably to be buried in mass graves. He concealed his files at home, hiding his activities even from his wife because of fears of retaliation by the regime.

Now the evidence he gathered is helping Libya’s new leadership as it intensifies a search for fighters who went missing in the war. The uncertainty over their fate is adding to the grievances in a land still traumatized by the dictator’s long rule and lingering tensions between those who supported him and revolutionary forces.

“We won’t have reconciliation in the country if we don’t take care of this,”al-Farjani said. “People are suffering. They want to know the fate of their loved ones.” [VG]

The Gera article notes how there is no firm estimate even of how many went missing, from both/all sides combined, during the course of this war the rebels started and NATO escalated.

Al-Farjani believes there could be 25,000 people still missing -- though part of his mission is to confirm a more precise figure. International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo put the possible total at around 20,000. Many political and army leaders have refused to give estimates, saying it will take time to determine the scope of the problem.

Al Arabiyah has this on the good doctor's reaction to the alleged discovery of the mass grave for the Abu Salim Prison probably fictitious massacre:

Salim al-Farjani, a member of the committee set up to identify the remains, appealed for international help.

“We call on foreign organizations and the international community to help us in this task of identifying the remains of more than 1,700 people,” said Farjani.

“We were invited to visit the place where the corpses of the prisoners at Abu Salim were found, where we saw scattered human bones,” he said.

Farjani also referred to “egregious acts committed against dead bodies, on which acid was poured to eliminate any evidence of this massacre.” [AA]

I had wondered where the 1,270 (a highly suspect number itself) had become, as sometimes reported, 1,700 (or "more than" that). It seems our friend and detective Dr. Salem might be the origin. Last we heard, the bones seen on the surface were not human, per the only people there qualified to even guess, and it has still, to my knowledge, never been exhumed (see here for details).

See-Through Salem: "Dr.Salim" Speaks, Coach Salem Manages

January 24, 2012
Last edits Jan. 28

<< See-Through Salem: Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub?

Fact-Seeding, Amidst Fact-Finding?

As we've previously established here (explained in the above link and illustrated at left), one very useful alleged witness to the Khamis Brigade shed massacre, called Dr. Salim Rajub, seems to be physically the same person as one Dr. Salem al Farjani. That matters because the latter works for the NTC government, finding facts about massacres they want to make sure Gaddafi Loyalists are blamed for. Working for Tripoli, he will be gathering "facts" on a massacre he himself seeded facts about, blaming loyalists under a false name.
The ethical implications are simply astounding.

Having established that, we turn to just what the this "Dr. Rajub" did with his 15 minutes of fame under his false identity. The visual cue we started with was his interview, at the massacre site south of Tripoli, with Stuart Ramsay of Sky News. Theirs was apparently the first news team at the site, around 11 am on August 27 by the angle of sunlight. The man who looks and talks just like al Farjani is actually in two different segments, interviewed each time.

AFP spoke with him the same day many hours later, by the late afternoon sunlight in the video (see at right), and apparently somewhere in-between he gave an interview for a fascinating Global Post video, a later discovery recently found and mined by readers here.

On the same day or perhaps over the next few, I'm not sure, he also spoke to French paper Libération,  to Anthony Loyd of the Times of London (but run in The Australian instead), apparently to Human Rights Watch, and possibly to Robert Worth of the New York Times (see below, and did I miss any?).

The correlation is only sometimes by name, and this is given differently throughout the time he spoke in this persona. Sky News called their interviewee first "Salim," then in the final, more inclusive report, as "Salim Rajip," no "doctor." In the first one he gives a fairly long version, mostly with standard details as below, not worth re-typing. At 1:55 he says "actually I'm living about 200 meters from here, and I heard some people shouting, from this place..."

At 3:25 he says "so, we guess about seven to ten people were escaped, and the rest of the people were killed here." He mentions three wounded escapees seen nearby shortly after the attack, who are now at the hospital and could be talked to. This local knows who can and can't be talked to and where they can be found. Take note. At 4:07, Ramsay asks al Farjani if any of the victims, any at all, might've been "mercenaries" killed by Rebels. He responds:

They were killed by Gaddafi forces, that's for sure. That's according to the witnesses, [pointing] and you can talk to them, and according to the people who actually escaped from here. That's for sure. They were killed by Gaddafi forces. That's sure. Sure.

Verbatim from the second video:

We were here near this mosque [Hurriya wonders - this one?] and we heard some people shouting. Right? We try - we're but 5, 10 people, we, we want to come here to see what's happening and see whether some people are calling for help. We hear some guns are going on, and their bombs are going on inside. 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? Next day morning, I mean after maybe, I don't know, one hour or so, everything is quiet. And there were about three people. injured, and they're escaped, okay, and they are now in Tripoli Medical Center.

He's the only witness or survivor, I believe, to single out the TMC, Dr.al-Farjani's workplace at the time. His account delivery to Ramsay is less than convincing; feel free to watch the video and see for yourself (linked above). Was he at home, near a mosque,or at home near the mosque? Who are the other 4-9 members of this "we?"

This second report has "Salim" bring forth another witness, Mustafa Abdullah el-Hitri/Atiri. He wasn't named there, but it's him (explained here). For the first report, Atiri wasn't ready, but was surrounded by men talking with him, as he somehow prepared. Once ready, he tells the tale, "Salim" translating his story to English, with his arm around the witness' shoulders. It's an unconvincing delivery for both, but the short edit cuts out the details of Mustafa's detention and escape. This is probably the worst part of all judging by his fuller narratives to other news outlets.

Dr. al Farjani spoke to AFP as "Dr. Salim Rajub," the full name I've adopted here as semi-official.

Dr Salim Rajub, who lives near the base, told AFP: "I am shocked, I never imagined I would see a scene like this in Libya [...] On August 23, we heard gunfire before breaking the (Ramadan) fast and people shouting for help, but there were snipers outside and nobody could get close. These men were killed by Kalashknikovs and hand grenades, and then they were burned."

Confirming that, a "Dr. Salem" spoke to Alex Loyd (who also spoke with el Hitri) with strange factual authority, almost like a man in the midst of a fact-finding mission like Dr. al Farjani is said to have gone on at the time:

"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?"

Human Rights Watch did not speak with Atiri, but on the 27th interviewed an unnamed "local resident" with medical training, possibly our subject, who said:

Last Wednesday [sic - Aug 24], sometime after the early evening prayer, I heard the sound of heavy gunfire and grenades, then complete calm. Then in the evening, my neighbors came to me. They asked if I could help people with gunshot wounds…I told them to take them to the hospital. [The neighbors] were scared to take them to the hospital, so they kept them [at home].

Which hospital, one wonders? TMC is not named here, going against the Farjani ID, but I still suspect it's him.

Global Post spoke on the 27th with an unnamed man who is clearly Dr. al Farjani (a still at left), apparently still playing the same role he did for Sky News. Here he said:

0:21 - "On Friday night, this area were liberated by the rebels, and this morning, we just come and see this place [on fire?]."
0:58 - "For the last 40 years, I hear that some people killed, executed, that they were hanged, but this is the first time I see people, they kill them and they [bury?] them."
James Foley: "They burn them."
Dr. al Farjani: "Yeah, they burned them, yeah. Yeah, I mean it's a [?buy?], to kill somebody and burn him again? I mean, for what? I mean, they are trying to hide their crime? [shaking head slowly with an odd smile] No.

Libération also spoke with our subject, as "le docteur Salem Rajab" for a report not run until August 29. Again, they also spoke with his kiddo el Hitri/Atiri (as Moustapha el-Etri) and perhaps with Atiri's escape companion, Gazi Tarrar (see below). Here's what Jean-Louis le Touzet wroteabout "Dr. Rajab" and then I let Google translate mangle:

This is Dr. Salem Rajab, who said to keep a medical office in the district, which carried the death toll Saturday afternoon.
[...]
According to Dr. Salem Rajab, "between 140 and 160 prisoners from the jails of Gaddafi were gathered in the courtyard Tuesday 23 [August, ed]." Then, still on Tuesday, shortly before breaking the fast, he heard gunshots. A lot. He and the neighbors came immediately, "but the soldiers shot Kadhafi the top of the mounds of sand from the cement plant. There were three big explosions and screams, and saw the flames. As there was fighting in the barracks, could not close until this morning [Saturday]. "
[...]
"We are looking for 90 missing bodies," says Dr. Salem Rajab. And these three bodies outside, one of which has its feet in a noose? The doctor, while Moustapha said nothing: "These are three soldiers who refused to participate in the implementation and the mercenary," he said, mimicking the scene, "killed on the spot."

And the good doctor possibly spoke, at a later date, to Robert F. Worth at the New York Times, as covered in the article A "Dr. Salim," a "Mr. al Farjani, and a Key Escapee. No mention is made of a Dr. or a Salem, but Worth did speak with his protege el Hitri (as Mustafa Abdullah Atiri), who told him about his co-escapee "Taha" (Tarrar apprently does translate that way sometimes...). Mustafa also mentioned the local man, Ahmed al-Farjani, who took in on both he and Taha on about August 24. Mr. al-Farjani, who is Dr. al-Farjani's same age (but a construction worker), spoke to Worth as well and agreed he saved Atiri, the same kid the doctor he probably looked just like would take to the media in a few days.

Did the NTC's massacre-solving czar leave us the full name Dr. Salem al-Farjani, spread out over two fake witnesses, both flanking Mustafa el Hitri?

Coach Salem?
Beyond his own voluminous words to the media, perhaps under two or more untrue names (is Rajub/Rajip really a transliteration issue?), Dr. al Farjani seems to have had a hand with some of the other, far-too-numerous alleged witnesses to the massacre. He of course physically held Atiri/el Hitri while translating for him, after pre-announcing him and then walking him up. As contributor Peet 73 said just from that:

The Sky Video show's quite clearly that the doctor is the puppet master behind this presentation. He's not only the most educated and "serious" witness he's also the man who guides the journalists around and leads other dummies to them. It's very revealing how he backs the other, less profesional liar with his arm around his shoulder (after 2:34). 

Taking "presentation" narrowly as of young Mustafa, that's fairly apparent. But to take it further and to offer a competing metaphor, he might be the dungeon master of this whole multi-witness massacre role-playing game. I could see it then, but wasn't ready to say it yet.

We had a look in Seamus Murphy's VII photo library for any glimpses of Dr, Farjani, but no identifiable views appeared. However, this image (crop at left) could possibly show his chubby arm raised behind the foreground character (also an alleged witness, unnamed), as he helps prepare Mustafa (orange shirt) for Ramasy's coming visit. This and other photos suggest Murphy was there shooting  at around 9:30 to 10:30 am, when Sky Seems to have filmed about 11:00 (all by rough reading of sunlight "azimuth").

That arm's gesture says, perhaps, "this is a huge story, huge. You can't screw this up." Atiri's might say "but I haven't even been inside there yet. How am I gonna know what to say?" 

Just from that, the possibility of witness coaching is there, but only with one witness we've already seen him translate for. But contributor Felix noticed the signs of another case of fondling by the coach, in the final clip of the Global Post video report by James Foley. This regards the sobbing man, an unnamed, gaunt man with a lean intensity, a "grief-stricken relative and/or survivor" seen in solitary anguish in a photo here, and then being comforted by many here, here, here, here, and here (17th image in that slide-show).

Then, in a more chipper mood off to the side, apparently after this session, what seems to be the same man can be seen at the end of that GPvideo (1:23). He's first smiling, talking to another, chubbier man who's patting him on the back. That arm, again all we can see of him, looks a hell of a lot like Dr. Farjani's. One can imagine this saying "that was some serious grief you gave them. You earned your pay today, son." The sobbing man seems aware, if "Salim" isn't, that a camera was suddenly filming them, and he quickly moves away from the pat, leaving the doctor's hand lingering and sliding off his back, along the way revealing the short sleeve of that goofy blue "aligator" (Lacoste?) shirt.

That's sloppy, sloppy work. Lucky the world doesn't give a shit.

After
Dr. Rajub was just an ordinary man, an anonymous local whose only claim to fame was witnessing this loyalist massacre with his own eyes and ears, knowing many of its escapees, apparently in a supervisory capacity, and bringing all that together for the world's gathered news media. It's only natural that we should never again hear from Dr. Rajub once his public work was complete. Afterwards, the strangely similar Dr. Salem al Farjani, who's apparently the same guy in fact, took over this massacre, its witnesses and escapees, its presentation to men of power, its mythology and its utility in the continuing persecution of Libyan loyalists.

The Tripoli Massacres: PHR Shed Massacre Report

January 2, 2012
lat update Jan. 14

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

I recently discovered this December report, in PDF form, from "Physicians for Human Rights" (PHR), a credible-seeming U.S.-based group sucked in by the rebel stories of the "32nd Brigade Massacre." This is the most serious competitor yet to the exhaustive research I've done, along with contributors, of what I call the "Khamis Brigade shed massacre" (see the link above), the largest and most famous alleged crime of the fleeing Gaddafi regime in the Tripoli area.

The PHR report is a monstrous document in more ways than one. Three case studies of alleged prisoner of the shed behind behind the Yarmouk base are included. All three names (Ali, Mohammad, and Omar) are pseudonyms given for "protection." One, "Ali," was transferred elsewhere (into another bizarre story), all retell heinous and poetically revealing abuse at Yarmouk, and two (Mohammad and Omar) say they escaped the shed massacre itself.

Both of these witnesses corroborate each other on how heroic guard "Mustafa" tried to help them escape but failed. That's neat, but no other witnesses recalled that guy. (El Hitri alone, among the 20 others, cites a different guard, Abdul Razaq, who helped differently and succeeded). But despite their corroborations, even these two witnesses disagree on the incident date. "Mohammad" cites it as happening early evening of August 23 as most do, and "Omar" has it late night on the 22nd. Why PHR didn't notice that or find it significant, I do not  know.

They also interviewed other "key informants" and have a fourth case study of "Laskhar," who claims to be one of the soldiers running the camp,overseeing beatings, torture, executions, and the burning of the bodies. He's also a cousin of one of the detainees, "Ali."

One bad sign, as Petri Krohn noticed in the report's ackowledgments:

PHR expresses its sincere gratitude to Dr. Mohamed Othman and Dr. Salem Al-Fergani for their inestimable support in carrying out this investigation.

"Dr. Salem al-Farjani, also known as Dr. Salim Rajub, has already been exposed as the fabricator of the Khamis Brigade massacre fable," Petri notes. That may be a little strong a diagnosis, but he's clearly at least one fabricator of it among many, and now a rebel government functionary in this area...
Otherwise, for now, I leave open comments for anyone who wants to analyze and critique this important roadblock to truth.
---
Update Jan. 14: Global Post reports the other day “New Libya needs justice and accountability”
Opinion: After Gaddafi, Libya must investigate suspected war crimes committed by all sides.
Richard SollomJanuary 12, 2012 13:03

... alleged war criminals from all sides of the recent conflict remain at large, however, and must be brought to justice. Holding these individuals accountable is the most effective way to end impunity and establish the rule of law.

But he only named one such person, the commander of the Yarmouk base, framed by the rebels to give themselves impunity, with the assistance of fakers and easily-duped Human Rights groups.

One whom Libyan authorities should detain and hold accountable is Lt. Col. Mansour, who ordered his troops to kill 153 men in late August.

With a team of forensic experts from Physicians for Human Rights, I investigated this massacre by Gaddafi’s 32nd Brigade soldiers. We interviewed four eyewitness survivors as well as one of the alleged perpetrators, conducted medical evaluations of surviving detainees, and assessed the crime scene using forensic methods. … we provide the first comprehensive forensic account of the massacre and produce evidence of torture, rape, and summary executions of these detainees.

Forensics! They verified that "Mohammed" and "Ali" had injuries, not where they were sustained. That came down to misplaced trust in the men's words.

They found some 9 mm bullets, no real mention (that I noticed) of the gobs of Kalashnikov shells there should be, nor of any study of the hanger for grenade shrapnel and its signs. The bodies were surely gone before they had their look. They missed the surrounding victims, 34 or more, nearly everyone of them a black-skinned man.

They don't know the clues for an early rebel victory there, suggesting almost exactly the given massacre date. They missed the contradicting dates the two escapees gave for that event, missed the contradictions between them and all the others, and that Dr. al-Farjani, likely their primary source throughout, is a proven transparent faker and liar with regards to this very case.

Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre: A "Dr. Salim," a "Mr. al Farjani," and a Key Escapee

January 3, 2012
last edits Jan 5

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

This post will seek to sort out a narrower slice of the shed massacre witness list, one tight little knot among many worthy of untangling on its own.

Leap One: Dr. Salim is Dr. Salem

First, I recently made a crucial discovery about one alleged witness of the massacre by government forces at the shed behind the Yarmouk base south of Tripoli, when it was really probably a massacre of government forces. Dr. Salim Rajub/Rajip (who spoke widely to the media) is actually Dr. Salem al Farjani of Tripoli Medical Center, cleverly revealing his first name and "Dr." title while obscuring his identity otherwise. He gets the nick-name "See-through Salem."

Al Farjani was at the time travelling to mass grave and massacre sites to investigate what he always "found" to be loyalist crimes, and would soon, by late November, be appointed to keep doing that for the new Libyan government. And here he is recounting under a thin pseudonym some of the same "facts" he'll be "finding" later and helping to make official about the single most prominent and poignant among them. (See, in fact, his acknowledgment from Physicians for Human Rights, for one, in understanding this massacre they devoted a whole fancy report to).


Among the shed massacre "witnesses," Dr. Rajub was already in his own unique space, being the only witness who brought forth another witness, an alleged escapee who remained unnamed. Speaking to Sky News correspondent Stuart Ramsay for the second time on Saturday August 27 (apparently the witness wasn't quite ready before the the first broadcast), Dr. Salim walked up with his left arm around the man's shoulder, and then translated for him, from Arabic to English.

The edit makes the man's story seem amazingly vague, with nothing about his captivity, the massacre's start, or just how he escaped. It only starts with Salim saying "7 -- 10 to 11" people "tried to escape," then which ways people ran upon fleeing the shed, and how some of them were wounded then executed on the way. He closed strangely with "this place was for executing the people who are exactly refusing to kill the other people, the civilian people."

Leap Two: Atiri is El Hitri
Also on the 27th (four days after the massacre), New York Times writer Robert F. Worth spoke with a man of interest (among several other strange people) who was named but not shown, Mustafa Abdullah Atiri, a 26-year old lawyer. By his account as well as approximate name, age, and profession, I decided he's clearly the same as Mustafa Abdullah el Hitri, who was mentioned in the Autralian on the 29th. No photographs were provided of either man to make a visual link. Only a different, believable, transliteration of family name and a different age (forgot he was was 27 now instead of 26?) stand in the way of concluding this leap is quite valid, and he wasn't even trying to give a different identity.

The Australian ran an article from Anthony Loyd, from the Times (of London?). His escaped witness el Hitri had some background on his brief detention at the shed (four days only), the beatings, torture, and emasculating humiliation they were subjected to there. He told of being locked in one of the prison trucks in the compound yard, only taken into the shed on the 23rd, to be killed with the others, one presumes. During that brief walk, Atiri happened to see Khamis Gaddafi right there, giving orders of some kind, generally believed to be the orders to kill them all (basis of possible War Crimes trials for Khamis...).

El Hitri is the only witness to notice the Leader's son, or to recall the man who saved his life later, the heroic guard "Abdul Razak." During the massacre, Razak became "sickened by the killing," and made the decision to open the locked doors while the killers went to re-load. He told anyone still alive to make a run for it, and they did.

Most prisoners forgot that part, however, and said a fellow prisoner kicked the doors open, or the doors were just left open, or the guards never left and were fought past, or the locked doors were circumvented in favor of a "hole in the wall".

With his family name transliterated perhaps better as Atiri, he met Robert Worth of the New York Times on Aug. 27, and spoke with him again three days later ("a week after his escape"), prior to Worth's epic Sept. 21 article, entitled "surreal ..." something, I forget. In greater detail he cited the rebel psycho-babble of ridiculous neglect, abuse, and torture. He elaborates on his sighting of Khamis, and his massacre details are about the same, down to Abdul Razaq and the opening to life he offered to so little recognition. Worth relates how:

Atiri escaped ... along with about 15 other men. Atiri told me that after running from the warehouse, they leapt over a low wall at the far end of the prison, then sprinted between empty houses and farms. They could hear the whine of bullets slicing into the fields around them, and shouts from the guards at the prison. Some of them — after days with little food and water — stopped to drink from a faucet outside a farmhouse and were gunned down. Atiri kept on running.

It was dark by then, but the soldiers fired flares into the sky, illuminating the kill zone. Finally, Atiri and another prisoner named Taha banged on the door of a farmhouse and found a family willing to hide them for the night.

His ordeal was not over. The next morning, Atiri woke up in the barn after a fitful rest, and he and Taha were told they could not stay. There were still Qaddafi soldiers in the area. The family gave them new clothes and some money, and the eldest son drove the two escapees to a neighboring town and dropped them off. They tried to blend in, without success...

A group of local men quickly surrounded them. One put a gun to Atiri’s head and began shouting: “You rat, you rat! Where do you come from?”

That story, and it's a gripping one, will resume below.

Leap 3 - El Hitri/Atiri is the Unnamed Escapee
Hitri/Atiri matters here because while not shown, he was described by Worth in a very helpful way, for which I must thank him. "I first met Atiri four days later [the 27th]. He was standing in the yard of the prison he had escaped from, a big man in a sweaty orange polo shirt with enormous, haunted eyes."

Look again at the unnamed man posing with "Dr.Rajub" on the 27th. We see an orange polo shirt, sweaty-looking, large eye that are arguably "haunted" (tired, dark). I don't think I'd say he's a "big man," however; he's barely taller than Dr. Salem (who is shorther than UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon), but looks well-nourished enough. It was smart to claim only four day's captivity with the standard scraps of food and drops of water allowed by the cruel guards.

Further, language issues should be considered. Neither Loyd nor Worth mentions a translator (not that they would have). Did Atiri speak to them in English or Arabic? Was the unnamed man truly incapable of English, or perhaps not confident telling elaborate lies in it just yet? No firm answers should be expected to the questions, and we'll have to leave it unclear, and working neither for nor against making a link.


If we take this for a moment as all the same man, his more detailed story to Loyd came two days after his first performance, and to Worth apparently the following day, when he "walked then with a limp, a week after the massacre." For what it's worth, the Sky video (again: "Mass Killing" Evidence Found in Libya) shows him walking up at 2:27. He shows no limp here, or a very faint one if so. My guess is his injury was suddenly more pronounced and pathetic three days later. Crippled for life, likely.

Yeah, I think it's all the same guy. For confirmation just after saying that, near the top in a Google search I could have done at any time prior to now but hadn't, please see: Seamus Murphy VII photo, August 27:

Mustafa Abdullah El Hitri, a survivor of a massacre allegedly committed by Qaddafi loyalists, is seen within the Salahuddin district of Tripoli. One of the worst single atrocities documented so far during Libya's revolution...

...everything we've been told about it is a lie.

[side-note: Another image of Atiri, and another. Anybody out there in Libya happen to know this guy by his face? Is this his real name? Where was he really on the 23rd of August? DO NOT leave a comment or make a sound on the Internet if so. Gather easy proof as carefully as possible and try to leave that messed up place for a while. Get to Algeria maybe and then safely and irreversibly publish it. Hopefully sanity will be slapped back into Libya by itself before too long. ]

We had a look in Mr. Murphy's VII photo library for any glimpses of Dr, Farjani, but no identifiable views appeared. This image could possibly show his arm raised behind the foreground character, as he helps prepare Atiri for Ramasy's coming visit. Other photos suggest Murphy was there shooting  at around 9:30 to 10:30 am, when Sky Seems to have filmed about 11:00 (all by rough reading of sunlight "azimuth").

Leap 4 - Mr. Al Farjani is Dr. Al Farjani
So we have a possible match with the unnamed man Dr. Salem coached to Sky News the same day Mr. Worth first met him. Since Dr. Farjani was there the same day, it's worth wondering if Worth also talked to the man's apparent coach. Not publicly anyway, or by that name. But he did speak with one "Ahmed al Farjani." He comes up at the end of Mr. Atiri's journey, along with "Taha," to some nearby town or neighborhood, where they quickly met unfriendly locals.

At that point, a man named Ahmed al Farjani pushed through the crowd and began arguing heatedly with the gunman. He told the gathered crowd that Khamis Qaddafi’s soldiers had left town, and no one would be harmed for harboring the two escapees. He then led Atiri and Taha to his own house and locked the door. 

In fact, Farjani, a 42-year-old construction worker, had no idea whether the soldiers were gone or not, he told me later.

Is it sheer coincidence that a man with Dr. Salem al Farjani's last name saved Atiri/el Hitri on the 24th, while Dr. Salem - posing as a different Dr. Salim - ushered this same escapee (protectively) to the media three days later? It's possible, but so far the other parallels have not been coincidental, and my money is comfortably on the deceit getting deeper yet. This seems to be a clever code for Dr. Farjani, to give us his full name, just split-up across two fake witnesses, hovering around the same survivor of a fake massacre.

Why would he do that? That's for a psychiatrist to say, maybe.

The given age of this manual laborer is consistent with Dr. Salem's, if the latter's birthday is between Aug. 27 and Nov. 30. But he does have the different personal name, profession, and different implied address from both Dr. Salims (right next to the base itself for the fake guy, and somewhere probably north of there in Tripoli itself for the NTC guy). There is of course no photo here of Ahmed to settle the issue.

If All Four, Then... 
Like el Hitri, a "Salim" spoke to the Times' Anthony Loyd, as published by the Australian. For the record, he sounded quite "in charge"of the facts there, just like if Dr. al Farjani the massacre investigator had arrived. Because he had.

"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. What has been done with the other bodies?" 

In fact, over 150 dead bodies were allegedly removed on the 28th, but how many escaped? Somehow, Loyd picked up a range of "between seven and ten men [who] survived the massacre." To Sky News, the doctor gave both of these - one the old number, the other replacing it? "Seven -- ten to eleven people." The Original Misrata MilitaryCouncil version, announced at dawn on the 24th, said "no more than 10" survived a massacre that was clearly this one. Later it was over ten, with Atiri himself soon saying 15, others saying 20, two dozen, about 30 and even 35 total survivors have been cited by some members of the burgeoning club (of at least 21, and probably 23 members I have located).

Putting this all together, the doctor and the escapee spoke together to at least three newsmen - Stuart Ramsay/Sky (as Salim Rajip and unnamed), Loyd/Times (as Salem and M.A. el Hitri) and Worth/Times (as Ahmed al Farjani and M. A. Atiri). They both contributed to the specific drive topoliticize the non-event and get the Gaddafi family not just blamed but prosecuted. Ramsay said in conversation with the Sky News anchor (from the earlier report):

Anchor: And they were begging to get this investigated interationally.
Ramsay: Absolutely. The ICC was the first thing that the gentleman ["Salim"] who was talking to me in with fantastic English said please please get this investigated. The ICC is going to have a huge amount of work to do here, perhaps involving both sides of course not just, there's accusations of both the rebels and the Gaddafi forces, but they have a lot of work to do because some terrible things have happened here as we know.

Anchor: But no doubt this was Gaddafi's forces"
Ramsay: No doubt at all, according to the locals ["Salim"], because they [he, said he] went to see what the screams were coming out of this farm building...

And Atiri alone testified to Khamis' personal presence and implied order, a central plank of the ICC's stated interest in pursuing him over this massacre. That's some teamwork, and Dr. Farjani the NTC's chief of body-snatching propaganda made a wise choice taking this prolific escapee under his chicken wing. And he needs the protection and the publicity, to make sure his (version of the) story doesn't disappear due to "sleeper cells." As Worth related,

[Atiri] seemed terrified that the prison overseers would find him. “The brigades are still roaming around, and I still fear they will kill me,” he told me. “They have sleeper cells. I saw a list of names, before I was arrested, of people who have been given money and weapons to destabilize the country, like Iraq.”

Names! From this liar! "Arrest this and this loyalist!" No, no, no... if anything causes that kind of thing, it'll be the same thing as in Iraq. A lie-based demonization and total exclusion of a seriously wronged and vengeful minority large enough to launch a sustained insurgency. I'm certain it exists in Libya, and all signs suggest excellent weapons sales are in store for years to come. I don't support an insurgency, because they don't have enough non-exhausted, no-dead people (remaining) and they still have too many enemies outside. The only answer, I think, will be mental, moral, and global - and eventually legal. It probably will not even approximate true and total justice forwhat'shappened, but it will help more than just Libya. Let's figure out what.