Libya will investigate Gaddafi’s death

GlobalPost

Libya’s new government announced an investigation into the killing of Muammer Gaddafi, as officials ordered a halt to public viewing of the ex-leader’s corpse, the Guardian reports.

After bowing to international pressure to explain exactly how Gaddafi was killed, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Libya’s new president from the National Transitional Council, said a committee has been set up to look into the deaths of Gaddafi and his son Mutassim in Sirte last week, the Guardian reports. So far live video has shown Gaddafi alive at the time he was captured.

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Jalil said Gaddafi’s opponents would have preferred to see the dictator stand trial and suffer in prison, BBC reports.

"Those who wanted him killed were those who were loyal to him or had played a role under him,” said Jalil, BBC reports. “His death was in their benefit."

Government officials said Gaddafi was killed in a “crossfire” between revolutionary fighters and Gaddafi loyalists, but other accounts show he was killed by revolutionaries in captivity, the Washington Post reports.

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In Misurata, Gaddafi and his son’s bodies were taken off display from the refrigerated meat locker, where they were kept. Since the door was constantly opening to thousands of Libyans viewing the corpses, the bodies weren’t prevented from rotting, the Washington Post reports. Guards had to hand out surgical face masks and spray disinfectant on the bodies.

Officials are still debating whether to bury Gaddafi’s body secretly, so his grave won’t become a loyalist shrine, or to bury him in his hometown, Sirte, as his tribe has requested, the Washington Post reports.

Read more at GlobalPost: GADDAFI: GlobalPost videos, photos, dispatches

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