(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Leaders of National Transitional Council (NTC) were cagey about plans for Gaddafi burial, not wishing to see his grave become a rallying point for residual loyalists.
Gaddafi’s body was laid out overnight in a private residence in Misrata -- Libya's third-largest city, which his forces devastated in a protracted siege that proved to be one of the turning points of the eight-month uprising, an AFP correspondent reported.
Question marks remained about how he met his end -- mobile phone footage appeared to show him captured bloodied but still alive and then lynched by his captors.
THE KILLING
NTC fighters said they cornered the man who regarded himself as "king of kings of Africa" cowering in a culvert brandishing a golden gun.
“Gaddafi was in a jeep when rebels opened fire on it. He got out and tried to flee, taking shelter in a sewage pipe," National Transitional Council (NTC) field commander Mohammed Leith told AFP.
NTC fighters "opened fire again and he came out carrying a Kalashnikov (assault rifle) in one hand and a pistol in the other," he said.
Gaddafi "looked left and right and asked what was happening. Rebels opened fire again, wounding his leg and shoulder. He died after that," according to Leith.
A wounded Gaddafi was seen alive and standing as he was being manhandled by Libya's new regime fighters before the announcement of his death, in mobile phone video footage.
Bloodied in the head, face and shoulders, NTC fighters circled Kadhafi as he apparently tried to cry out.
One fighter appeared to hold a gun to his head but it was unclear if he fired before Kadhafi was hauled onto the front of a vehicle amid chaotic scenes.
SEIF AL-ISLAM
NTC leaders had said that once Sirte was in the hands of their fighters, they would announce the formation of an interim government to oversee the drawing up of a new constitution and the holding of free elections after the decades of dictatorship.
But with another Gaddafii son -- his longtime heir-apparent Seif al-Islam -- still unaccounted for in the routing of loyalist forces, NTC leaders waited, despite the scenes of jubilation in towns across the country at the news that the once-all powerful tyrant was dead.
Interim premier Mahmud Jibril said Seif al-Islam was believed to be pinned down in a village near Sirte.
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