Graphic videos circulating online and on broadcasts around the world show the alleged bloodied body of Moammar Gadhafi, who ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years. His body is surrounded by freedom fighters chanting “Bye Bye, Shafshoufa,” which translates into “Bye Bye, Frizz Head.”
While it’s still not fully verified that the images are of the former dictator, the current Libyan president has confirmed that Gadhafi is indeed dead.
How he died still remains a topic of debate. Early reports from fighters said Gadhafi had been barricaded in with his heavily armed loyalists in the last few buildings they held in his Mediterranean coastal hometown of Sirte, furiously battling with revolutionary fighters closing in on them Thursday.
At one point, Sky News reported that a French fighter jet fired on a convoy of vehicles carrying Gadhafi and some loyalists as they tried to flee Sirte.
ABC News reported that NATO said its aircraft did attack two military vehicles near Sirte, but would not confirm that the vehicles had been carrying Gadhafi. “At approximately 0830 local time (0630 GMT) today, NATO aircraft struck two pro-Gaddafi forces military vehicles which were part of a larger group moving in the vicinity of Sirte,” NATO military spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie said.
According to French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet, French warplanes identified and “stopped” a convoy of vehicles carrying Gadhafi before he was killed in subsequent clashes. The convoy of several dozen vehicles “was stopped from progressing as it sought to flee Sirte but was not destroyed by the French intervention,” Longuet told journalists. Libyan fighters then intervened, destroying the vehicles, from which “they took out Colonel Gadhafi,” he added.
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The BBC reported that video had emerged purporting to show Gadhafi being captured alive and bundled onto a truck. And that NTC fighters said they found him hiding in a hole, and shot him when he tried to escape. One NTC fighter who talked to the BBC said the former leader had begged him not to shoot, and showed reporters a golden pistol he said he had taken from Gadhafi.
Most accounts agreed Gadhafi was shot to death by fighters.
Fighters in Sirte rolled Gadhafi’s body on the pavement, according to footage aired on Al-Jazeera. Gadhafi was stripped to the waist and his head was bloodied. The body was then paraded through the streets of the nearby city of Misrata on top of a vehicle surrounded by a large crowd chanting “The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain,” according to footage aired on Al-Arabiya television.
Al Arabiya also identified the man purported to have delivered the final shots that killed Gadhafi: an 18-year-old wearing a New York Yankees hat.
Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance to Misrata, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, one to the head and one to the chest.
One fighter who said he was at the battle in Sirte told AP Television News that the final fight took place at an opulent compound. Adel Busamir said the convoy tried to break out, but after being hit it turned back and re-entered the compound. Several hundred fighters attacked.
“We found him there,” Busamir said of Gadhafi. “We saw them beating him (Gadhafi) and someone shot him with a 9mm pistol … then they took him away.”
Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani in Tripoli told Al-Jazeera TV that a wounded Gadhafi “tried to resist (revolutionary forces) so they took him down.”
Fathi Bashaga, spokesman for the Misrata military council, whose forces were involved in the battle, said fighters encircled the convoy and exchanged fire. In one vehicle, they found Gadhafi, wounded in the neck, and took him to an ambulance. “What do you want?” Gadhafi asked the approaching revolutionaries, Bashaga said, citing witnesses. Gadhafi bled to death from his wounds a half-hour later, he said. Fighters said he died in the ambulance en route to Misrata, 120 miles from Sirte.
Amnesty International urged the revolutionary fighters to report the full facts of how Gadhafi died, saying all members of the former regime should be treated humanely. The London-based rights group said it was essential to conduct “a full, independent and impartial inquiry to establish the circumstances of Col. Gadhafi’s death.”
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