Sky broadcast pictures of a heap of burned skeletons, still smoldering, in an agricultural warehouse in southern Tripoli, where the victims were apparently prisoners.
Witnesses believed the dead had been gunned down and set on fire by pro-Qaddafi forces on Aug. 23 and 24 as the veteran leader’s rule collapsed in the face of a rebel advance, it added.
The network’s correspondent, Stuart Ramsay, estimated there were 53 bodies and said local residents believed as many as 150 people may have been killed there.
Ramsay said it was unclear if they were soldiers or civilians.
One unidentified man told Sky he was a survivor, a former prisoner who had escaped.
“About 10 to 11 people tried to escape,” he said, according to a local resident who translated his words. “They were trying to kill them even when they escaped.”
“This place was for executing the people who are refusing to kill the other people, the civilian people,” he said.
The report quoted local residents as saying many more bodies were buried in the compound or in nearby warehouses and buildings.
The rebels found three bound, executed bodies in military uniform outside the warehouse, it said. Local people believed these soldiers had been killed because they refused to shoot the people being held inside the warehouse, it said.
On Thursday, a British medical worker said a Tripoli hospital had received the bodies of 17 civilians believed to have been executed by government forces in Qaddafi’s compound in the capital.
