Post date: Oct 20, 2012 11:10:43 AM
One year on since the capture and killing of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
SIRTE, LIBYA (REUTERS) - A year ago on Saturday (October 20) Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was captured and subsequently killed after a gunfight in his home town of Sirte.
The closing weeks and days of the doomed Libyan leader were played out in his home town of Sirte to where many of his die-hard loyalists had fled since the fall of Tripoli in August 2011.
The Battle for Sirte was a long, intense and relatively close-range battle against the remaining Gaddafi faithful.National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters bombarded positions held by pro-Gaddafi fighters holed up in a small area of the town's centre and gradually advanced against Gaddafi's weakening forces.
For a war fought in such hot and dusty conditions the final days of the fighting were often fought in streets flooded by burst water mains. The town had received preferential treatment under the Gaddafi-era as he transformed it from a small fishing town, to the town that hosted the inaugural conference establishing the African Union in 1999.
It is unclear exactly how Gaddafi was apprehended but one description, pieced together from various sources, suggests Gaddafi tried to flee Sirte at dawn in a convoy of vehicles after weeks of dogged resistance.
This flight was stopped by a French air strike and he was eventually captured, possibly some hours later, after gun battles with NTC fighters who found him hiding in the drainage culvert.
NATO said its warplanes fired on a convoy near Sirte, striking two military vehicles in the group, but could not confirm that Gaddafi had been a passenger. France later said its jets had halted the convoy.
Amateur video shows how Libya's former dictator was beaten as he pleaded against violent treatment from his captors.
The video, shot by one of the fighters who had surrounded the former leader after he was found in a cement drainage pipe, was handed to a Reuters journalist in Sirte.
Gaddafi can be heard pleading with his captors, repeatedly saying their treatment of him was "forbidden" (by Islamic law).
One fighter aimed a gun to his head while others are seen slapping and kicking the former strongman, who for months vowed to crush the pro-democracy uprising, describing political opponents as "rats" and "cockroaches."
Gaddafi's face was covered with blood and fighters from the interim ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) cheered and shouted "God is greatest" with many firing weapons into the air to celebrate his capture.
His capture and subsequent death at the hands of the new government forces came as a surprise as many had believed Gaddafi was hiding among the Tuareg tribe in the south of the country. National Transition Council officials initially denied Gaddafi had been summarily executed by the fighters saying Gaddafi - wanted by the International Criminal Court - died on his way to hospital due to crossfire between his supporters and NTC fighters.
Understandably the spot where Gaddafi was finally captured became a source of great interest and curiosity to the people of Libya.
Scores of fighters flocked to inspect the drainage culvert from where he was dragged and beaten amid the chaotic scenes of his capture.
After his capture and killing on the Thursday (October 20) the very next day Libya's new leaders started to argue over what to do with his body.
His corpse, with a visible bullet wound in the side of the head, was left lying in a cold store in an old market area of Misrata, where it was taken after he was killed in Sirte.
A local commander said the body would be buried with dignity and full Muslim rites within 24 hours, but the site had not yet been determined.
An NTC senior official told Reuters there was division in the council's upper levels over where Gaddafi's final resting place should be.
Some called for Gaddafi's body to be kept chilled for some days, while the country's new political constitution was hammered out, to prove there was no doubt Gaddafi was dead.
As the hours turned to days many people flocked to see their former leader's dead body. For two days hundreds of people, including many children, filed through the cold store room and saw the man who defined Libya for decades. It was only on the second day that his body - and bullet wounds - were covered, leaving only his face exposed.
On the Saturday (October 22) the body of one of Gaddafi's sons, Mo'tassim, was moved from another location elsewhere in Misrata and placed next to his dead father.
Like his father's, Mo'tassim's body was covered up to the neck with a blanket and wounds to his jaw and neck stitched up.
Later that day, the body of a third man, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr - the head of Gaddafi's armed forces - was brought in and placed on a stretcher between Gaddafi and his son.
As soon as it was confirmed Gaddafi was dead guns fired on the streets of Sirte were fired in celebration rather than in anger.
Jubilant NTC fighters hoisted flags and even brandished Gaddafi's treasured golden handgun, one of two guns he was believed to have been armed with when he was captured.
Hundreds of Libyans flocked to Martyr's Square in the capital Tripoli to celebrate the death of the man who ruled them with an iron fist for 42 years.
Later that evening tracer fire filled the night sky as militia men fired their heavy machine guns into the air in celebration of their "liberation" after eight months of war.