SIRTE (Libya), Oct 20: Libyan ruler Muammar Qadhafi was killed on Thursday in a final assault by new regime forces on his hometown.
“We announce to the world that Qadhafi has died in the custody of the revolution,” National Transitional Council (NTC) spokesman
Abdel Hafez Ghoga said in Benghazi.
“It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qadhafi has met his fate,” he added.
He said the death had been “confirmed by our commanders on the ground in Sirte, those who captured him after he had been wounded in the battle for Sirte”. n Tripoli,
interim Prime Minister Mahmud Jibril told reporters that NTC leader
Mustafa Abdel Jalil was to declare by Friday that the country had been liberated and also give details on Qadhafi’s killing.
A spokesman for the NTC in Benghazi,
Jalal Al Galal, said a doctor who examined the fallen strongman in Misrata found he had been shot in the head and abdomen.
“They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed,” a source in the NTC told reporters. “He might have been resisting.”
Driven in an ambulance from Sirte,
his body was delivered to a mosque in Misrata. Senior NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta said DNA tests were being conducted to confirm it was Qadhafi. He would be buried in Misrata, most likely by Friday.
In Sirte, some fighters brandished a golden pistol they said they had taken from Qadhafi. One reconstruction, pieced together from various sources, suggested Qadhafi tried to break out of his final redoubt at dawn in a convoy of vehicles after weeks of dogged resistance. However, he was stopped by a French air strike, followed by a US drone attack, and captured, possibly some hours later, after gunbattles with NTC fighters who found him hiding in a drainage culvert.
Fathi Bashaga, spokesman for the Misrata military council, whose forces were involved in the Sirte siege, said fighters encircled the convoy and exchanged fire with several of the vehicles.
In one, they found Qadhafi, wounded in the neck, and took him to an ambulance. “What do you want?” Qadhafi said to the approaching revolutionaries, he said, citing witnesses.
A videotape aired on Arab satellite channels later showed a bloodied Qadhafi alive and walking as he was being manhandled by Libya’s new regime fighters after his capture.
NTC fighters circled the 69-year-old ousted strongman, who was bloodied in the head, face and shoulders, as he apparently tried to cry out.
One fighter appeared to hold a gun to his head but it was unclear if he fired before Qadhafi was hauled onto the front of a vehicle, amid chaotic scenes in the video broadcast on Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera television channels.
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SONS: An NTC commander said one of Qadhafi’s sons, Mutassim, was also killed in Sirte.
“We found him dead. We put his body and that of (former defence minister) Abu Bakr Yunis Jabar in an ambulance to take them to Misrata,” Mohamed Leith said.
The new government’s justice minister said another of Qadhafi’s sons, Seif Al Islam, was captured alive after fighting near Sirte and was under in custody at a hospital. Seif has had charges of crimes against humanity filed against him by the International Criminal Court, which on Thursday urged him to give himself up and “face justice”.
Qadhafi was still alive when he was captured near Sirte. In the video, filmed by a bystander in the crowd and later aired on television around the world,
Qadhafi is shown being dragged off a vehicle’s bonnet and pulled to the ground by his hair...................................
“At first we fired at them with anti-aircraft guns, but it was no use,” said Salem Bakeer, while being feted by his comrades near the road. “Then we went in on foot.
“One of Qadhafi’s men came out waving his rifle in the air and shouting surrender, but as soon as he saw my face he started shooting at me,” he told Reuters.
“Then I think Qadhafi must have told them to stop. ‘My master is here, my master is here’, he said, ‘Muammar Qadhafi is here and he is wounded’,” said Bakeer.
“We went in and brought Qadhafi out. He was saying ‘what’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s going on?’. Then we took him and put him in the car,” Bakeer said.
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and it is believable. This fellow Mr. Qadhafi , megalomaniac was living in fools paradise thinking himself as the leader of Libyan people. His fate was sealed the day he confronted the
in that UN meeting.. watch them they are just a year or two old..
watch him at UN..
Topic: End of Muammar Gaddafi ???