He later told a general with the 101st Airborne that, if military law allowed for killing, but circumstances allowed for capture, he believed that his commanders expected him to shoot.
And they were killed under circumstances that most of us could never imagine.
At least 70 people were killed in circumstances that have not been fully explained.
The N.T.C. had detained one of its military commanders, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younis, who was later killed under circumstances that are still unclear.
Two years ago its founder, Juliano Khemis, a half-Palestinian, half-Jewish actor, was killed in circumstances that neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian authorities have explained.
Security officials said a soldier in Cairo, along with two protesters in Suez, were killed in circumstances that were not immediately clear.
Still, Mr. Jibril has been trying to name a new cabinet since early August, when the top rebel military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, was killed in circumstances that appeared to implicate council officials.
"In some of the cases examined in this report, women were killed in circumstances where there had been no history of physical violence – but their abuser had exercised almost total control over all aspects of their lives," he wrote.
But for those who know someone killed in circumstances that are unexplained or unaccounted for, the prospect of truth or justice has dwindled too which means that many Algerians, despite the grandiose aims of Mr Bouteflika's charter, will probably never be truly reconciled.
The Phoenix program run by Colby targeted not only Vietcong fighters but civilians, including mayors, village leaders and other elected political leaders, approximately 80,000 of whom were "neutralized" and over 26,000 of whom were tortured and killed under circumstances that can most accurately be called assassinations.
