Dr. Sabril Mohammed: Status Request

October 12, 2011
last edits Oct 14


I know little about the man I would kindly ask (via this post only, for now) Human Rights Groups, and/or the Libyan government in Tripoli, and/or the man himself, to make public the current status of. I wonder about Dr. Mohammed Sabril and, in fact, all of the exceptional people spoken to in this rare Sky News report from, I think, a couple months back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAdhhz3XVTM

(not available on Sky's channel)

They fled from either the Benghazi area or the Nafusah mountains, having to take circuitous routes to avoid rebel controllers who'd likely arrest them for defecting from under their control (another video covers this aspect better - link when I come across it again). They were living then in a government-run shelter in Tripoli, all for the moment clearly relieved to be safe among their own kind. Several shared stories of violence, killing, and disappearances of loyalists like themselves, a sense of repression and a need to hide, and constant fear of unpredictable violence. "Persecuted for their beliefs," as the reporter put it.

Since then, the rebels have caught up to them and taken Tripoli too, leaving nowhere else to run from them except overseas. One wonders how they're adjusting, and how suddenly they were forced to.

The doctor interviewed here isn't named, but the info below gives the name I use. He also spoke to Russia Today (cited in a video of mine at 7:00), giving his name there as Dr. Sabri, formerly a surgeon at Benghazi's al-Jalaa hospital. That facility came into rebel hands somehow in the early days; there were reports this happened after its managing director was killed on February 18, day three of "protests," his body tortured (see: Video Study: Hospital Brutality).

Dr. Sabri, Sky News

Here, to Sky News, Dr. Sabri says he fled from Benghazi because he feared he'd be killed for daring to treat government soldiers, as he had sworn to do. He says he also witnessed a loyalist soldier with a head wound taken from his bed by armed rebels. Two times he tried to stop them, but failed to prevent them slitting the man's throat. To RT, he specified they killed him in front of the intensive are unit and then somehow hanged his body "on the wall of  the Jalaa hospital."

He reflected for Sky's camera "if I had known our hospital in Benghazi would become a machine of killing, to save him, maybe I - I [inaudible, choking up].

Some would be tempted to dismiss this as loyalist propaganda, but we've seen plenty of precedent, before then and since (see also the aftermath of their first day managing Abu Salim trauma hospital) and similar treatment in the same exact  hospital (see either link in the second paragraph). The latter is apparently a different incident from what Sabri described, another among probably several episodes of cruelty at that one hospital. There, a bloodied black patient who can barely stand up is chased and dragged out of the hospital and repeatedly kicked, stomped, and hacked with machetes by a casually enraged crowd. It's not clear if he survived or not.

So this was serious shit the doctor and many others witnessed, and some number participated in. And he ran way from it, showing a suspicious bad faith in rebel management, possible Gaddafi loyalty, and certainly a desire to make them look bad to the world. He's surely not popular with the new government in Tripoli.  He has been fully open and made himself easy enough to identify. And well... I for one am curious if he's still alive and free, or has he disappeared, or faced any unfair reprisals for acting on his fears and then his conscience? I'd like to see him interviewed again.

The same question applies to many, many thousands of others I haven't had pop to my attention like this.

Any further notes on Dr.Sabri, the Jalaa hospital, etc. will be posted below.
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Oct. 13/14 - name update: I started this post referring to a "Dr. Sabri," as RT had it, but as Felix alerts me, I didn't read the full description beneath the Youtube video of Sky News. It's also on their site, and apparently gives his name. Presumably from the original report, it says in part:

...a doctor who had also fled from Benghazi. Dr Sabril Mohammed said he feared for his life and his family's lives after witnessing the killing of a Libyan soldier. He said he treated a soldier who came in with superficial head wounds. He said the soldier was transferred to another hospital and then he was attacked and his throat was cut. Fighting back tears the doctor told us: "They tried to kill me because I tried to protect my patients. I left Benghazi because I treated all patients including soldiers."

So there's some ambiguity; it seems one of the two got the name wrong. For now I'm going with RT, but it could be the other way around. And there's some ambiguity about where the killing happened - in front of ICU or at another hospital. There's also another Dr. Sabri Mohammed, rebel doctor it seems by his calls for foreign air support, in Ajdabiya, interviewed by PBS in early March and some other sources. This is a different, younger man on-screen.

Video Study: Hospital Brutality (disturbing)

July 25/26, 2011

Below is a very telling and detailed new rebel atrocity video that deserves its own post. I've not seen this before, and it seems to have been first posted on July 21 by the important Libya S.O.S. site. Nonetheless, I suspect it's old, from the rebellion's first days in Benghazi.

The on-screen title gives the locale as al-Jalaa hospital, Benghazi. This is a facility I know little about besides this tidbit from Chinese news, Xinhua, February 18:

Oea newspaper reported on its website [...] that a group of protesters killed the managing director of AL-Galaa hospital in downtown Benghazi, Libya 's second largest city. The victim's body was tortured, it added.

Why? My guess is for daring to treat the "African mercenaries" the "protesters" were brutalizing across town. That would fit what what we see below. And do remember, the evidence of foreign fighters still consists of unsubstantiated rumors - all those captured as Afro-mercs wound up being Afro-workers or loyal Libyan fighters of dark skin.

What this video shows is a hospital under what I hope is not the normal management. So I presume it's later on the 18th or a day or two after the directing manager was ruthlessly killed.

In this hospital, dimly lit, a young black man lays on the floor, pants pulled low in a fashion familiar elsewhere, and his shirt long gone. By his pants, he's a civilian, not a soldier, so most likely a foreign worker, perhaps pressed into some type of counter-protest. Presumably suspected of being a brutal well-paid mercenary, he's clearly injured, touching his head gently with concern. His hands and arms are caked with blood, and thick blood has been bubbling from his nose.

The men crowded around this casualty do not seem interested in helping him, but neither do they start out (here) attacking him. He manages to stand slowly on his own, but then they instantly grab, push, and attack him. He apparently starts trying to flee and they - about eight men in civilian and medical clothing - chase (it's chaotic). At least one "doctor" (by his blue surgical gown) waves a curved sword above his head as he follows. The victim is making little if any sounds, seems feeble, possibly drugged, or just delirious from blood loss. The whole scene is surprisingly quiet by the usual standards.

The video now, for those who can stomach it:


And the rest of the description for those who aren't sure:

When we see the victim again, it's not far away and he's down again, face down on the floor, covering his head with his hands. A blue-gowned medical terrorist is striking him hard on the head or shoulders, with a sword - it's audible - at least three blows. One man in blue then steps in, standing between the swordsman and his reeling victim, until others grab his feet and drag him down the hall since he's unable to walk out any longer. One patient (?) hits the man with his walking stick in as he passes.

One more quick sword attack I missed at first, just as he's pulled through the door into the parking lot. It looks like a forcefully placed blow by a kid in a dark sweater, probably to the left upper arm or shoulder. The "protesters" shout "Allahu Akbar!" as they get him out of the hospital into the sun, apparently their main goal - no treatment of mercenaries.

The persona non grata is tossed down, with an audible sound, onto the curb right by the brightly-colored garbage cans. He's kicked and stomped, and swiped at with a sword again, not real hard but enough to visibly cut his lower left side (?) at 1:17.

Then again a man intervenes, and there's a short edit. Next, someone starts pulling the "mercenary," again by the leg, from his shielded huddle. He sits up instead, as if snapping awake, showing a serious red slash on his right shoulder blade. He's quickly hacked again on the right side and falls back in surrender - his hands and his whole upper body are bloodied now, his hand on his belly, the spot just sliced, and his left upper arm is visibly pulsing out blood.

The men around him start to argue instead of attack; one definitely seems to be saying "enough," and at 2:05 stands over the lynch mob's prey defensively until pushed aside by the others. A few resume kicking and stomping the man, and somehow something like baking soda is splashed across him. As the barely conscious victim is rolled over, we see he's been bleeding badly all over the concrete. But his hands seem intact, and nothing's noticeably coming off. (on closer look, some of the sword strikes look more like slaps.)

Collectively, the crowd has second thoughts about where this is going. They pick him back up ... and carry him back into the hospital, it seems. The video ends there, seemingly disappointed with no guts spilled. But a powerful testimony, perhaps, to the differing interpretations of mercy in Islam.

But for all we know, he might have been killed by another mob the next day who were all "what's HE doing here?" And again, these are the monsters working for the cabal Barrack Obama calls the legitimate government of all Libyan people. Pray for Libya.