It was not the examiners’ job to ascertain cause of death—their main task was gathering enough information to assist in identification. But most times the cause of death was plainly—and painfully—obvious. Most of the forty- nine corpses had died of blast trauma or fire from exploding ordnance or systems on board their vessel when the Libyan air force attacked. Severed body parts were sometimes simply thrown into a body bag, often without any real attempt to try to match the parts by gender or race. Many suffered no injuries from blast trauma or fire—they obviously died from wounds inflicted by gunshots at very close range, blunt-force trauma, knife wounds, crushed throats, slashed arteries, mutilated genitalia, or bum marks all over the bodies.

It was obvious they had been tortured to death by their captors after being rescued from the sea.

In all, eight female corpses were examined. They were not exempt from the torture the others endured.

A few hours after the examinations began, a helicopter landed at a helipad outside the warehouse facility, and a group of government officials, surrounded by bodyguards, were quickly taken directly from the helicopter to a waiting limousine and then directly to the warehouse. On his orders, a special corridor had been erected from cubicle dividers with one-way mirrors installed that allowed anyone walking inside the corridor to look out but no one to look in.

Ulama Khalid al-Khan, wearing a military garrison cap and sunglasses to hide his identity even though he was safe from any outside scrutiny, could not believe what he was looking at. The stench was horrific—he wanted to put a cloth up to his nose to block the smell of these tortured, bloody, unwashed bodies, but he dared not show any weakness in front of the soldiers escorting him. The corridor took him and his aide, Major Amr Abu Gheit, into the makeshift morgue, where he was able to view several of the corpses, and he had to struggle to keep his stomach from turning inside out. Finally, he was escorted out of the warehouse complex and into a separate office.

“What... what in hell was that?” Khan gasped.

“One hundred and twenty-nine persons recovered by the Libyans from the Mediterranean Sea after their ships were attacked, sir,” Major Gheit responded. It was obvious that even the veteran warrior could barely stomach the sight himself. He handed Khan a list of the survivors. “Forty-nine fatalities, including nine women. Fifty-six others severely injured, some critically. They are almost done with the identification process.”

“Were ... were some of those men tortured?”

“Obviously the Libyan military wanted information out of them,” Gheit said. “The king of Libya explained that the attacks were in retaliation for the commando attack on their missile base.”

“Damned brutal animals,” Khan muttered, taking a sip of water to try to settle his stomach. “I’ve never seen men mutilated like that.”