Gadhafi put on display in shopping center freezer

KIM GAMEL

RAMI AL-SHAHEIBI

Asso­ci­ated Press

MISRATA, Libya — Moam­mar Gadhafi’s blood-streaked body was on dis­play in a com­mer­cial freezer at a shop­ping cen­ter Fri­day as Libyan author­i­ties argued about what to do with his remains and ques­tions deep­ened over offi­cial accounts of the long­time dictator’s death. New video emerged of his vio­lent, chaotic last moments, show­ing fight­ers beat­ing him as they drag him away.

Nearly every aspect of Thursday’s killing of Gad­hafi was mired in con­fu­sion, a sign of the dif­fi­cul­ties ahead for Libya. Its new rulers are dis­or­ga­nized, its peo­ple embit­tered and divided. But the rul­ing National Tran­si­tional Coun­cil said it would declare the country’s lib­er­a­tion on Sat­ur­day, the start­ing point for a timetable that calls for a new interim gov­ern­ment within a month and elec­tions within eight months.

The top U.N. rights chief raised con­cerns that Gad­hafi may have been shot to death after being cap­tured alive. The fate of his body seemed tied up in squab­bles among Libya’s fac­tions, as fight­ers from Mis­rata — a city bru­tally besieged by Gadhafi’s forces dur­ing the civil war — seemed to claim own­er­ship of it, forc­ing the delay of a planned bur­ial Friday.

Also mud­dled was the fate of Seif al-Islam Gad­hafi, the only Gad­hafi son who stayed in Libya and report­edly sur­vived after his father’s Aug. 21 ouster. It appeared Fri­day that he was still at large: some gov­ern­ment min­is­ters had said he was wounded and in cus­tody in a hos­pi­tal in the city of Zli­tan, but a mil­i­tary offi­cial at the hos­pi­tal, Hakim al-Kisher, denied he was there.

In Mis­rata, res­i­dents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view the body of Gad­hafi, which was laid out on a mat­tress on the floor of an emptied-out veg­etable and onions freezer at a local shop­ping cen­ter. The body had appar­ently been stowed in the freezer in an attempt to keep it out of the pub­lic eye, but once the loca­tion was known, that inten­tion was swept away in the over­whelm­ing desire of res­i­dents to see the man they so deeply despised.

Men, women and chil­dren filed in to take their pic­ture with the body. The site’s guards had even orga­nized sep­a­rate vis­it­ing hours for fam­i­lies and sin­gle men.

“We want to see the dog,” some chanted.

Gadhafi’s 69-year-old body was stripped to the waist, his torso and arms streaked with dried blood. Bul­let wounds in the chest, abdomen and left side of the head were visible.

The bloody siege of Mis­rata over the sum­mer instilled a par­tic­u­larly vir­u­lent hatred of Gad­hafi there — a hatred now mixed with pride because he was cap­tured and killed by fight­ers from the city.

New video posted on Face­book showed rev­o­lu­tion­ary fight­ers drag­ging a confused-looking Gad­hafi up the hill to their vehi­cles after his cap­ture and less than an hour before he was killed. The young men scream “Moam­mar, you dog!” as their for­mer leader wipes at blood cov­er­ing the left side of his head, neck and left shoulder.

Gad­hafi ges­tures to the young men to be patient, and says “What’s going on?” as he wipes fresh blood from his tem­ple and glances at his palm. A young fighter later is shown car­ry­ing a boot and scream­ing, “This is Moammar’s shoe! This is Moammar’s shoe! Vic­tory! Victory!”

In Tripoli, joy over Gadhafi’s end spilled into a sec­ond day as thou­sands con­verged on cen­tral Mar­tyrs’ Square for Fri­day prayers and cel­e­bra­tions. Men danced and hoisted the country’s new red-green-and-black flag.

“It’s the start of a new era that every­body hopes will bring secu­rity and free­dom,” said Tarek Oth­man, a com­puter spe­cial­ist. “I hope democ­racy is the path we take so all of these Libyans who have sac­ri­ficed will really feel free.”

He stood with his wife — who wore a cap in the revolution’s col­ors over her all-encompassing black niqab — in the square, which was for­merly known as Green Square and was used by Gad­hafi to stage ral­lies against the uprising.

Khaled Alm­s­laty, a cloth­ing ven­dor, said he wished Gad­hafi had not been killed after being captured.

“But I believe he got what he deserved because if we pros­e­cuted him for the small­est of his crimes, he would be pun­ished by death,” he said. “Now we hope the NTC will accel­er­ate the for­ma­tion of a new gov­ern­ment and … won’t waste time on irrel­e­vant con­flicts and com­pet­ing for author­ity and positions.”

It’s a tall order after nearly 42 years of rule by one man, who often acted accord­ing to whims and tol­er­ated no dis­sent. Libya’s new lead­ers have stressed the need for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, but many fac­tions are eager to have their say after years of repression.

The Western-backed NTC, a col­lec­tion of for­mer rebels, returned exiles, tech­nocrats and Islamists, has always been united behind its goal of oust­ing Gad­hafi. Now the group must over­come divi­sions and com­pet­ing self-interests to rebuild the oil-rich North African nation, which was stripped of insti­tu­tions under Gadhafi.

The NTC said interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will for­mally declare lib­er­a­tion on Sat­ur­day in the east­ern city of Beng­hazi, where the rev­o­lu­tion began in mid-February. Prime Min­is­ter Mah­moud Jib­ril has promised to resign, say­ing he will not be part of any new gov­ern­ment and will instead turn his atten­tion to fight­ing corruption.

The tran­si­tional coun­cil has asked the United Nations “to play a sig­nif­i­cant role” in help­ing them write a con­sti­tu­tion, hold elec­tions and build demo­c­ra­tic insti­tu­tions, Ian Mar­tin, the U.N. envoy to Libya, said.

“No one should under­es­ti­mate in this moment of cel­e­bra­tion in Libya how great are the chal­lenges that lie ahead,” he said. He also warned of “a major chal­lenge in the future of those of the fight­ers who don’t wish to return to pre­vi­ous civil­ian occupations.”

Gad­hafi was killed when rev­o­lu­tion­ary fight­ers over­whelmed him and the last of his loy­al­ists in his coastal home­town Sirte, the last bas­tion of his regime to be cap­tured after weeks of heavy fighting.

Author­i­ties have promised to bury Gad­hafi in accor­dance with Islamic tra­di­tions call­ing for quick inter­ment, but Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Mah­moud Sham­mam said the bur­ial was delayed because offi­cials were debat­ing “what the best place is to bury him.”

Gadhafi’s fam­ily, most of whom are in Alge­ria or other nearby African nations, issued a state­ment call­ing for an inves­ti­ga­tion into how Gad­hafi and another of his sons, Muatas­sim, were killed. In the state­ment on the pro-Gadhafi, Syria-based TV sta­tion Al-Rai, they asked for inter­na­tional pres­sure on the NTC to hand over the bod­ies of the two men to their tribe.

Gad­hafi was cap­tured alive and there have been con­tra­dic­tory accounts of how and when he received his fatal wounds. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Com­mis­sioner for Human Rights, said the images of his last moments were very disturbing.

“More details are needed to ascer­tain whether he was killed in some form of fight­ing or was exe­cuted after his cap­ture,” Colville said.

Accord­ing to most accounts from fight­ers on the ground and their com­man­ders, Gad­hafi and his loy­al­ists were in a con­voy try­ing to flee when NATO airstrikes hit two of the vehi­cles. Then rev­o­lu­tion­ary forces moved in and clashed with the loy­al­ists for sev­eral hours.

Gad­hafi and his body­guards fled their cars and took refuge in a nearby drainage tun­nel. Fight­ers pur­sued and clashed with them before Gad­hafi emerged from the tun­nel and was grabbed by fighters.

Most accounts agree that Gad­hafi died from wounds 30 to 40 min­utes later as an ambu­lance took him to Mis­rata. But accounts dif­fer over how he suf­fered those wounds.

Most com­man­ders and fight­ers at the scene with whom The Asso­ci­ated Press has spo­ken say that when he was cap­tured, Gad­hafi already was fatally wounded. In the videos of his cap­ture, how­ever, he has blood on his head, but none on his chest or abdomen. At one point, his shirt is pulled up to his chest, but no wound is visible.

Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Mah­moud Sham­mam said Gad­hafi was wounded after his cap­ture. “It seems like the bul­let was a stray and it could have come from the rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies or the loy­al­ists,” Sham­mam said.

Other fight­ers, com­man­ders and wit­nesses have not spo­ken of any such cross­fire or fur­ther clashes. Siraq al-Hamali, a 21-year-old fighter, told AP that he rode in the vehi­cle car­ry­ing Gad­hafi as it left Sirte. He did not men­tion com­ing under fire and said Gad­hafi died en route of wounds he already had.

Even reports of the coroner’s con­clu­sions were con­fused over which wound was fatal — some said it was the shot to the head, oth­ers said it was a shot to the liver.

Muatas­sim, who had been his father’s feared national secu­rity adviser, was cap­tured alive sep­a­rately in Sirte, and how he died also remains unknown.

In a video aired Fri­day on Al-Rai, the 34-year-old Muatas­sim, wear­ing a blood­ied under­shirt, sits on a mat­tress in a room with fight­ers around him. He takes a swig of water and smokes a cig­a­rette as he argues with at least one man who accused him of rob­bing the coun­try and abus­ing its sons.

The fighter then orders Muatas­sim to say “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” before the video cuts to a seg­ment with Muatas­sim lying sub­dued on the mat­tress with his fore­arm on his fore­head. He also appears to check for an injury on his col­lar bone. The last scene is of Muatas­sim lying dead, appar­ently in a hos­pi­tal, with a huge gash in his chest.

Posted by AP News on Oct 21 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.