LIBYA’S INTERIM government is poised to declare formal “liberation” following the killing yesterday of deposed leader Muammar Gadafy after he was captured by revolutionary forces who overran his last stronghold of Sirte.
News of Gadafy’s death prompted wild celebrations in Tripoli and other cities as Libyans hailed the beginning of a new era after more than eight months of bloodshed and two months after the capital fell swiftly to anti-Gadafy forces.
There were unconfirmed reports that several senior aides, including possibly two of Gadafy’s sons, had also been killed or captured when a convoy tried to escape Sirte.
The circumstances of Gadafy’s capture and death remain unclear. Arab TV channels broadcast video footage apparently showing a bloodied Gadafy alive and staggering as he was beaten by a group of men. Later images appeared to show him lying dead on a street. A Libyan official told Reuters he was killed in custody.
Last night interim Libyan prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, citing a forensic report, said Gadafy died from a bullet wound to the head received in crossfire between revolutionary supporters and his own supporters after he had been captured.
“Gadafy was taken out of a sewage pipe . . . he didn’t show any resistance. When we started moving him he was hit by a bullet in his right arm and when they put him in a truck he did not have any other injuries,” Mr Jibril told a news conference, reading from the forensic report.
“When the car was moving it was caught in crossfire between the revolutionaries and Gadafy forces in which he was hit by a bullet in the head.”
“The forensic doctor could not tell if it came from the revolutionaries or from Gadafy’s forces,” the prime minister added.
One report suggested Gadafy had tried to break from his Sirte redoubt at dawn in a convoy of vehicles. According to this account, the escape bid was scuppered by a Nato air strike.
Mr Jibril earlier announced that a formal declaration of liberation, which will set in train a process that will eventually lead to Libya’s first elections in more than four decades, would be made by today.
Amnesty International urged the interim authorities to make public the full facts of how Gadafy died, saying all members of the former regime should be treated humanely.
Gadafy, who was wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians following protests against his rule in February, was routed from Tripoli in August, days away from the 42nd anniversary of the coup which brought him to power in 1969. He had been at large since then.
In London, the Libyan charge d’affaires, Mahmud Nacua, told a press conference that Gadafy’s death was “a glorious and momentous victory”. “Today Libya’s future begins. Gadafy’s black era has come to an end for ever,” he said. “The Libyan people are looking forward to a very promising future where they can finally start building the free democratic state for which they have fought for about eight months now. Our people have paid a high price.”
Members of Ireland’s Libyan community, which constitutes one of the largest Libyan diaspora populations in Europe, were also jubilant. Tawfiq al-Ghazwani, who moved to Ireland after spending 10 years in Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim political prison, admitted to mixed emotions.
“On one hand I feel extremely happy to see the end of this tyrant who filled our country with bloodshed, but on the other I remember all my friends and other victims who are not with us today to celebrate,” he said. “I hope that the Libyan nation can now start over again and begin to heal its wounds.”
French president Nicolas Sarkozy arned of the challenges to come. “The liberation of Sirte must signal . . . the start of a process . . . to establish a democratic system in which all groups in the country have their place and where fundamental freedoms are guaranteed,” he said.