Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said an investigation was being conducted into the circumstances of Gaddafi’s killing following his capture, bloodied but still alive, during the fall of his hometown Sirte on Thursday, after several foreign governments and human rights watchdogs posed questions.
But the military leadership in Misrata, where Gaddafi’s body had been stored in a vegetable market freezer overnight and was again put on display for hundreds of curious onlookers yesterday, insisted the inquiry would involve no autopsy. “There will be no post-mortem today (yesterday), nor any day,” Misrata military council spokesman Fathi said. “No one is going to open up his body.”
His comments were confirmed by two other Misrata military chiefs.
Bashaagha said that the new regime’s military commander for the capital, Abdelhakim Belhaj, was expected to travel to Misrata later yesterday to view the corpse of the man who ruled Libya with an iron rod for 42 years.
But he said there were no immediate plans for National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Jalil to visit.
“Abdel Jajil did not come yesterday and is not coming today, and for the moment it is not expected that he will come.”
The interim leader was in the main eastern city of Benghazi yesterday visiting some of the wounded.
“Yes,” he answered when asked if the circumstances of Gaddafi’s death were being investigated. He declined to take any further questions. Libya’s wanted former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, meanwhile, surfaced in neighbouring Niger after apparently fleeing through the desert following the fall of the oasis town of Bani Walid on Monday in the penultimate battle of the conflict. — AFP.
