Gaddafi burial delayed for further investigation

The burial of dead leader Muammar Gaddafi has been delayed until the
circumstances of his death can be further examined and a decision is made
about where to bury the body, Libyan officials said today, as the UN human
rights office called for an investigation into his death.

The transitional leadership had said it would bury the dictator today in
accordance with Islamic tradition. Bloody images of Gaddafi’s last moments
in the hands of angry captors have raised questions over his treatment
minutes before his death. One son, Muatassim, was also killed but the fate
of Gaddafi’s one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam was unclear.

Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said Seif al-Islam was wounded and being
held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan. But Information Minister Mahmoud
Shammam said that the son’s whereabouts were uncertain.

Shammam said Gaddafi’s body was still in Misrata, where it was taken after he
was found in his hometown of Sirte, and revolutionary forces were discussing
where it should be buried.

Yesterday’s death of Gaddafi, two months after he was driven from power and
into hiding, decisively buries the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the
oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

It also thrusts Libya into a new age in which its transitional leaders must
overcome deep divisions and rebuild nearly all its institutions from scratch
to achieve dreams of democracy.

Many Libyans awoke after a night of jubilant celebration and celebratory
gunfire with hope for the future but also concern that their new rulers
might repeat the mistakes of the past.

Khaled Almslaty, a 42-year-old clothing vendor in Tripoli, said he wished
Gaddafi had been captured alive.

“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.”

Bloody images of Gaddafi’s last moments also cast a shadow over the
celebrations, raising questions over how exactly he died. Video on Arab
television stations showed a crowd of fighters shoving and pulling the
goateed, balding Gaddafi, with blood splattered on his face and soaking his
shirt.

Gaddafi struggled against them, stumbling and shouting as the fighters pushed
him onto the hood of a pickup truck. One fighter held him down, pressing on
his thigh with a pair of shoes in a show of contempt.

Fighters propped him on the hood as they drove for several moments, apparently
to parade him around in victory.

“We want him alive. We want him alive,” one man shouted before
Gaddafi was dragged off the hood, some fighters pulling his hair, toward an
ambulance.

Later footage showed fighters rolling Gaddafi’s lifeless body over on the
pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. His body
was then paraded on a car through Misrata, a nearby city that suffered a
brutal siege by regime forces during the eight-month civil war that
eventually ousted Gaddafi. Crowds in the streets cheered, “The blood of
martyrs will not go in vain.”

Libyan leaders said it appeared that Gaddafi had been caught in the crossfire
and it was unclear who fired the bullet that killed him.

Shammam said a coroner’s report showed that Gaddafi was killed by a bullet to
the head and died in the ambulance on the way to a field hospital. Gaddafi
was already injured from battle when he was found in the drainage pipe,
Shammam said.

“It seems like the bullet was a stray and it could have come from the
revolutionaries or the loyalists,” Shammam said, echoing an account
given by Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril the night before. “The problem
is everyone around the event is giving his own story.”

Shammam said that the NTC was expecting a report from Financial Minister Ali
Tarhouni who was sent as an envoy to Misrata yesterday

The governing National Transitional Council said interim leader Mustafa
Abdul-Jalil will formally declare liberation tomorrow in the eastern city of
Benghazi, where the revolution against Gaddafi’s rule began in mid-February.
The NTC has always said it will form a new interim government within a month
of liberation and will hold elections within eight months.

Nato’s governing body, meanwhile, was meeting today to decide when and how to
end the seven-month bombing campaign in Libya, a military operation whose
success has helped reinvigorate the Cold War alliance.

The UN Human Rights Council established an independent panel earlier this year
to investigate abuses in Libya, and spokesman Rupert Colville said it would
likely examine the circumstances of the 69-year-old leader’s death. He said
it was too early to say whether the panel — which includes Canadian judge
Philippe Kirsch, the first president of the International Criminal Court —
would recommend a formal investigation at the national or international
level.

“We believe there is a need for an investigation,” Colville said. “More
details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of
fighting or was executed after his capture.”

“The two cell phone videos that have emerged, one of him alive, and one
of him dead, taken together are very disturbing,” he told reporters in
Geneva.

Mohamed Sayeh, a senior member of NTC, said representatives from the
Netherlands-based International Criminal Court would come to a “go
through the paperwork.”

Sayeh also says Gaddafi’s body is still in Misrata, where it was taken after
his killing in Sirte. He says Gaddafi will be buried with respect according
to Islam tradition and will not have a public funeral.

The ICC did not issue any official comments about Gaddafi, but judges at the
court would need official confirmation — most likely a DNA sample from the
body — that Gaddafi is dead before they could formally withdraw his
indictment.

Gaddafi, Seif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi have
been charged with crimes against humanity for the brutal crackdown on
dissent as the uprising against the regime began in mid-February and
escalated into a civil war.