Military commanders in the Libyan city of Misrata said Saturday that no post-mortem would be carried out on the body of Muammar Gaddafi despite concerns over how the toppled dictator died.
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 on Saturday, insisted the inquiry would involve no autopsy.
“There will be no post-mortem today, nor any day,” Misrata military council spokesman Fathi al-Bashaagha said. “No one is going to open up his body.”
Questions remain over how Gaddafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a drain where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.
Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point. Footage showed the former dictator, his face half-covered in blood, being dragged towards a vehicle by a delirious crowd and forced onto the bonnet. Those at the front, pushed and shook him, pulled him by the hair and hit him.
Subsequent footage showed him being hauled off the vehicle, still alive, and hustled through the screaming crowd, before he disappears in the crush and the crackle of gunfire can be heard. NTC leaders are adamant he was shot in the head when he was caught “in crossfire” between his supporters and new regime fighters soon after his capture.
“There have been rumours flying around since the killing of Gaddafi, after images were released, claiming that our revolutionaries slaughtered him,” a senior NTC official said.
“No instructions were given to kill Gaddafi, and we do not believe our revolutionaries intentionally killed him.”