The “Suicide” Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi: Why The Media Silence?

The Brad Blog, which picked up on the story of the strange death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi shortly after I published the first account in the Western media on Sunday evening, asked a question yesterday evening that I had been asking myself throughout the day:

So, it’s been about 16 hours since we covered indie journalist / historian / blogger Andy Worthington’s detailed report on the reported suicide of the man who falsely
“confessed,” during torture, to a false tie between Iraq and al-Qaeda … As of this moment, not a single mainstream US newspaper or broadcast outlet has reported on the story. Is it not notable? Or are our newspapers just dead set on ensuring their irrelevance by continuing to not report on news that actually matters, no matter how widely it’s being reported in other parts of the world? See the rest of the story here.

Reuters finally picked up on the story late yesterday afternoon, and secured a quote from Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef, who said that she had seen al-Libi just two weeks ago, on April 27, during a visit to Abu Salim jail in Tripoli. She explained that he “appeared for just two minutes in a prison courtyard,” and that he “looked well, but was unwilling to speak” to the Human Rights Watch team, saying instead, “Where were you when I was being tortured in American prisons?”