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Gadhafi's burial delayed for further investigation
RAMI AL-SHAHEIBI and KIM GAMEL
TRIPOLI, Libya— The Associated Press
Published Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 7:15AM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 12:59PM EDT
Moammar Gadhafi's blood-streaked body was stashed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center Friday as Libyans tried to keep it away from angry crowds as they figure out where to bury the longtime dictator.
The makeshift provisions for the corpse reflected the disorganization and confusion that has surrounded Col. Gadhafi's death. Accounts of how he died after being captured by revolutionary fighters remained contradictory, and the top U.N. rights official raised concerns he was shot to death in custody.
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His burial had been planned for Friday, in accordance with Islamic traditions calling for quick interment. But the interim government delayed it, saying the circumstances of his death still had to be determined. Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam also said authorities are "debating right now what the best place is to bury him."
An AP correspondent saw the body at the shopping center in the coastal city of Misrata, home of the fighters who killed the ousted leader a day earlier in his hometown of Sirte.
The body, stripped to the waist and wearing beige trousers, was laid on a bloodied mattress on the floor of an emptied-out room-sized freezer where restaurants and stores in the center normally keep perishables. A bullet hole was visible on the left side of his head — with the bullet still lodged in his head, according to the presiding doctor — and in the center of his chest and stomach. His hair was matted and dried blood streaks his arms and head.
Outside the shopping center, hundreds of civilians from Misrata jostled to get inside for a peek at the body, shouting "God is great" and "We want to see the dog."
Bashir Ali, a commander from the Misrata military operations room, said the burial would be in a secret location to avoid revenge attacks. "Gadhafi hurt a lot of people and many will want to find his body for revenge, so we need to make sure he is not found," he said.
The 69-year-old Col. Gadhafi was captured wounded but alive, and there have been contradictory accounts of how and when he received his fatal wounds. New video emerged Friday of a bloodied Col. Gadhafi being taunted and beaten by the fighters who pulled him out of a drainage tunnel following clashes in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.
"More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of fighting or was executed after his capture," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, calling the images of Col. Gadhafi's last moments very disturbing.
Col. Gadhafi's capture came when revolutionary fighters overwhelmed him and his last die-hard loyalists in Sirte, seizing control of the regime's last major bastion after a heavily fought, weekslong siege. Exact details of his final hours remain unclear.
According to most accounts from fighters on the ground and their commanders, Col. Gadhafi was in a convoy trying to flee, when NATO airstrikes hit two of the vehicles. Then revolutionary forces moved in and clashed with the loyalists with Col. Gadhafi for several hours. Col. Gadhafi and his bodyguards fled their cars and took refuge in a nearby drainage tunnel. Fighters pursued and clashed with them, and in the end, Col. Gadhafi emerged from tunnel and was grabbed by fighters.
New footage posted on Facebook shows the moments when Col. Gadhafi was dragged by revolutionary fighters up the hill to their vehicles. The young men screaming "Moammar, you dog!" beat the confused-looking Col. Gadhafi, who wipes at blood covering the left side of his head and neck and left shoulder.
Col. Gadhafi gestures to the young men to be patient, and says "What's going on?" as he wipes fresh blood from his temple and glances at his palm. A young fighter later is shown carrying a boot and screaming, "This is Moammar's shoe! This is Moammar's shoe! Victory! Victory!"
The next point that most accounts agree upon is that Col. Gadhafi died about 30-40 minutes later as he was being taken in an ambulance to Misrata. A coroners report said he bled to death from a shot to the head, and he also had shots to the chest and belly. Accounts have been confused, however, over where and how those fatal shots were suffered.
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