Photo published in the BBC's deception about a mass grave that does not exist. The BBC caption: "Relatives of the missing have been visiting the mass grave at Abu Salim prison."

Editor's Comment: We have Martin Iqbal at Empire Strikes Back to thank for exposing this raw deception by the British Broadcasting Corporation in their attempt to reinforce the demonization of Col. Muammar Qaddafi and to justify NATO's destruction of Libya. In his report below, please note the contradictory statements within the global corporate media by the BBC, Human Rights Watch, Associated Press and CNN. In our September 11 article, The Imperial Media, Libya and the Battle of Bani Walid we analyzed various government-corporate media reports on the NATO war on the Libyan people stating,

"In their coverage of the Battle for Bani Walid we argue that the media has warped into publication of deliberate contradictions meant to confuse the reader, hiding or ignoring the facts."

It is only by persistently uncovering the lies of this government-controlled media demon, as Martin Iqbal has done here, that the truth will be brought to the light of day and not permanently removed from memory and the historical record.

- Les Blough, Editor

In a piece posted today after a NTC news conference, the BBC uses the headline:

More than 1,200 bodies found in Tripoli mass grave

Categorically, absolutely, unequivocally, this is an out-and-out lie; 1,200 bodies have not been found. Not a single body has been found.

This is revealed to the reader within the BBC’s own concocted report in the paragraphs that follow (emphasis mine):

A mass grave believed to contain up to 1,270 bodies has been found in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, says the National Transitional Council (NTC). .... The remains are thought to be those of inmates who were killed by security forces in 1996 in the Abu Salim prison. .... Excavation at the site is expected to start soon. .... Several bone fragments and pieces of clothing have already been found in the top soil.

While the unelected, illegitimate terror council known as the NTC claims to have found merely ‘several bone fragments‘, the BBC claims that 1,200 bodies have been found in its deliberately misleading headline.

Even this weak slew of lies from the BBC exposes the fragile nature of the ‘Abu Salim massacre’ propaganda, as it refers to the evidential basis of the event (emphasis mine):

A few eyewitnesses have talked about the fact they were killed in their jail cells by grenades and sustained gunfire after a protest. Officials in the new government say they will need foreign forensic help to determine exactly what happened there.

The BBC’s report contains testimony from a ‘Sami Assadi’, who claims to have lost two brothers in the incident.

“Mixed feelings really. We are all happy because this revolution has succeeded, but when I stand here, I remember my brothers and many, many friends have been killed, just because they did not like Muammar Gaddafi.”

The inclusion of this testimony is a blatant attempt to twist and distort the reality on the ground. The BBC suggests that the ‘revolution’ has succeeded. In reality the ‘rebels’ and the foreign soldiers & special forces leading them, don’t even hold Tripoli, in addition to countless other locations still held by the Libyan resistance. These include Bani Walid and Sirte – locations now subject to NATO-prescribed blockades in an attempt to starve the resistance into submission, coupled with lethal bombing campaigns.

In its crude attempt to deceive the public, the BBC even manages to contradict itself in this one-page report. The testimony it provides above suggests that the alleged victims of the ‘Abu Salim massacre’ were killed because they “did not like Gaddafi“, while the BBC itself claims earlier in the piece, that they were killed for protesting against conditions in the prison.

Associated Press has also picked up this story, citing rebel spokesperson Khalid al-Sherif: “We have discovered the truth about what the Libyan people have been waiting for for many years, and it is the bodies and remains of the Abu Salim massacre“. As with the BBC piece, this report also admits that only a few bone fragments have been found and excavation has not even begun.

Most certainly, this ‘mass grave’ propaganda will drop out of the news without retraction from the NTC liars or the media lackeys that peddled it, as it turns out to be an utter falsehood. ‘Abu Salim’ is an event toted by globalist-Zionist funded Human Rights Watch as the trump card in the propaganda war against Libya. It is an event for which there is no physical evidence, and HRW’s report on the event hinges on the testimony of one person who is now residing in the United States. Laughably, HRW even admits that they cannot independently verify a single detail of the man’s claims.

Update: 25 September, 2011

Hat tip to @Cordeliers on this. CNN has chimed in, stating that the bones found did not even appear to be human:

It was unclear, however, whether the site actually was a mass grave, as no excavation has taken place. Members of the media were shown bones at the site, but medics with CNN staffers on the scene said the bones did not appear to be human.

Source: Empire Strikes Back