Two loyalists of Libya’s interim government were handed Muammar Gaddafi’s body to bury secretly deep in the Sahara desert on Tuesday after a cleric prayed over his decomposing corpse, a Libyan official said.
With their Western allies uneasy that Gaddafi was roughed up and shot after his capture on Thursday, NTC forces had put his body on show in a cold store while they argued over what to do with it until its decay forced them to shut the doors on Monday.
“The process leading to his burial is taking place now,” NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta said. “Only two trusted people were assigned to this secret mission. These are not guards, but very trusted NTC people.”
Other NTC officials said Gaddafi had already been buried, but Mr Mlegta said the reports were premature. Final Muslim prayers were said over the bodies of the former leader and his son Mo’tassim by Gaddafi’s personal cleric Khaled Tantoush, who was arrested with him, before they were removed from the Misrata compound where they had been on display.
The rites were also attended by two of Gaddafi’s cousins, Mansour Dhao Ibrahim, once leader of the feared People’s Guard, and Ahmed Ibrahim, who were both captured with Gaddafi after their convoy was attacked in a Nato airstrike near Sirte, Gaddafi’s home town, just after it had fallen. The killing of the 69-year-old in Sirte ended eight months of war, finally ending a nervous two-month hiatus since the NTC forces overran Tripoli, the capital.
— Reuters