Man jailed over photos of victim in bodybag ... but Facebook says they’re OK
A VIDEO showing a victim of the Grenfell fire in a body bag was still circulating on Facebook yesterday despite the man who shot the footage being jailed.
Omega Mwaikambo uploaded images of Mohammed Al Haj Ali, 25, to the internet before the young man’s family had even been told of his death.
He was jailed for three months after pleading guilty to two counts of sending offending, indecent or obscene matter by a public communications network.
The police demanded that the 43-year-old give them access to his Facebook account so they could remove a number of images he had posted, including close-ups of Mr Ali’s face, with the question: ‘Does anyone know this body laying outside my flat for more than two hours?’
However, officers appear to have overlooked a video of the body Mwaikambo published in another of his posts about the fire. Dozens of people have reported it to Facebook but, even with Mwaikambo in jail, it says the image is permissible.
Facebook said in an automatic message: ‘We’ve reviewed the post that you reported and found that it doesn’t violate our Community Standards. Please let us know if you see anything else that concerns you.’
The social network also invited offended users to ‘block’ Mwaikambo’s page so they did not have to view it. Facebook allows pictures of dead bodies if they do not breach its guidelines.
For example, users are not allowed to post pictures for sadistic pleasure.
Sentencing Mwaikambo two weeks ago, District Judge Tanweer Ikram said his actions were ‘beyond words’.