An investigative team has taken on the issue of multiple suicides that took place in Libya over the past few months.

Some of the main points that were investigated used a rational manner of approach removing any area for generalizing, labels or personalization.

The investigation began after a strange pattern of multiple suicides occurred; more than twenty cases of individual as opposed to collective suicide took place in a period of approximately two months and to make things more bewildering, most were from one geographical area. The method used in all the suicides was either hanging or suffocation.

Several interpretations as to the reasons for this new phenomenon emerged at the same time, each analysis contradictory to the other. Some said it was due to the satanic interpretations of the Mexican devil “Charlie Charlie,” others said it was due to the acts of charlatans and magicians, and there those who said it must be due to drugs like the “Blue Elephant” pill which is a powerful hallucinogen. Some others stated that it could be due to social pressures, depression and a sudden drop in the economy, especially after the revolution and subsequent post war trauma. There were even more farcical suggestions like the curse of going against the ruler “Gaddafi” and that this was a form of punishment for such actions.

Most of these analyses appeared on social network sites at the same time and gained huge momentum due to Facebook pages with large numbers of followers spewing out misinformation.

When looking at the cases rationally the team found common factors among the victims, which helped to conclude the following:

Not all but most were active on social network sites, there was internet connection in the geographical area of the victims, the victims used laptop and mobile phone cameras frequently, the victim’s age group was between 16 to 27 years of age and strange international calls with non-traceable serial numbers contacted a few of the victims prior to their death. Some cases were excluded from this research due to their medical and psychological history.

Thinking outside the box, the researchers looked at factors that were not mentioned in the media, for example, electronic extortion (domestic or international), media cover up (using the story of suicides to drown out other media stories) or an organized mafia style group, with a specific strategic end goal, using the suicide cases as a stepping stone to a larger end game. This was the correct logical scientific basis to start looking for the main causes to this local problem from a researcher's point of view. Then there was the biggest challenge, which was to find common factors among the victims and answer the more important points and questions.

Why did a large number of the suicides take place in one geographical area despite the spread of this phenomenon to other Libyan cities?

It is easy to see that the major common factor is location, but also other commonalities would be the age group being 16-27 years of age or the use of a noose, which is not exactly common knowledge to a young adult or teenager, another important question would be the timing of all the misinformation that scattered efforts of a real investigation at the time by misleading investigators

The first difficult point encountered was whether this story had any supernatural cause behind it. My own faith and conviction believes in the existence of magic and with great respect to people who have this theory that there was a supernatural reason behind the suicides, I disagree for the following reasons:

Islam tells us that the devil or Jinn seek a living body to inhabit so they can be clothed and nourished and anyone who knows anything about exorcism know just how difficult it is to remove unwanted Jinn even when using the holy Quran.

Therefore, it was very confusing when evidence emerged of strange symbols found on the wall of a university bathroom where one of the victims was found. Four symbols that were said to be "Masonic" were present at the scene (as pictured below), so let us examine each symbol separately to understand them better.

(These drawings were found inside the bathroom at Omer Al-Mukhtar University where a female student had committed suicide) 

 

Related: University student commits suicide in Bayda

The first symbol is of a crucifix in its normal position in front of a pyramid. If the cross were changed to a swastika, broken, or inverted in any way, it would be a possible to say that the symbol was anti-Islamic or demonic in nature. Another symbol was the human palm and Star of David painted within it, if it were a human eye within the palm it would have a meaning but there is no reference to be found anywhere of a Star of David within a palm indicating that the person who drew it was ignorant to religious or demonic symbols. Another was the Pharaonic eye, the mistake with this is the crucifix within the eye of which there is no reference to anywhere in any documents or scripture. Finally, the sign of victory inside a closed circle. It is clear to see that this is not the internationally recognized symbol that we are used to.

What we can understand from these drawings is that they were there only to cause confusion or to deceive investigators because according to literature, that comprehensively covers such masonic or satanic symbols there simply is no comparison.

The most important point, which becomes sidelined by the controversy of such drawings, is that a person had decided to end her life by hanging herself with her own headscarf.

Is it logical to think the prior to committing suicide that the victim would be in the right state of mind to draw such symbols on the walls before submitting to death? It is more common in cases similar to see someone else painting or arranging symbols for the victim or maybe the victim arranging such a scene prior to actually carrying out the act by days or at least a good few hours.

Using all the information they had gathered, researchers surmised the following:

1 - There must have been external forces moving some of these events and if so then they were carried out by an experienced actor or expert in this area.

2. There was communication between this person and the victim via the Internet or telephone communications.

3 - This actor had some connection of his own to this confined geographical area or actively targeted it.

4 – The hypothesis of a blackmailer being the main cause began to rise above other causes. Which began to exclude other assumptions.

5- The imposition of supposed Masonic slogans on the victims is a significant sign that the perpetrator is a non-Libyan.

6- The blackmailer obviously has no respect for religion is a strong indicator that he/she is an atheist.

With this information in mind the scope of research focused on the following points:

1- A human not supernatural entity was responsible for the suicides; this person must possess unprecedented skills in the field of the internet and internet pages and has a high degree of technological knowledge in the field of communications.

2 – This person works with a group or a specialized team and not individually.

3 – The person has spent time and effort purely searching for something specific in the geographical area of Bayda, where the emergence of this phenomenon began.

4- The person has an accurate knowledge of Libyan society and social customs giving a very high probability of he or she being a non-Libyan resident.

5 – He/she has contacts outside of Libya leading one to believe that that person travels abroad because of the international contact made on phones and laptops of the victims.

6 – Pressuring the victim to the point of suicide suggests that the culprit could possibly harbor some form of personal vendetta against the victims or their families.

7 – There was a high number of electronic attacks on the Facebook page that was set up to gather the research in this study, especially after these more logical approaches to seek the truth were posted. This confirms the belief that the team responsible is actively seeking to silence the voice of reason on this case.

8 – Throughout the investigation, a document marked as secret by the General Libyan Intelligence Service emerged. The letter, directed against the Chamber of Deputies is one of extortion, targeting people within the Libyan government. This is a very dangerous card used against the Libyan government and a significant indicator of foreign intelligence involved in the case, this of course has significance when we consider the geographical area of both the eastern government and suicides and whoever might want to control and protect their interests within it.

Based on the above, the researchers decided to take their investigation to the next stage, which is to visit the area and conduct the next part of their investigation.

Those investigations are ongoing.