As citizens lined up in Misrata to view the body, the top U.N. rights chief raised concerns that Gadhafi may have been shot to death after being captured.
Also muddled was the fate of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the only Gadhafi son who stayed in Libya and reportedly survived after his father's Aug. 21 ouster. It appeared Friday that he was still at large: Some government ministers had said he was wounded and in custody in a hospital in the city of Zlitan, but a military official at the hospital, Hakim al-Kisher, denied he was there.
Interim government officials moved ahead on plans to "liberate Libya." The liberation was moved from Saturday to Sunday in the city of Benghazi, often referred to as the cradle of the revolution that overthrew Gadhafi, and not in the capital Tripoli, interim government officials told Reuters.
Meantime, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the alliance had taken a preliminary decision to end its seven-month mission in Libya on Oct. 31. He said the formal decision would come next week.
Earlier, the top NATO commander, Adm. Jim Stavridis, had said in an announcement on his Facebook page that he would recommend conclusion of the mission. "A good day for NATO, a great day for the people of Libya," Stavridis wrote.
In Misrata, residents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view Gadhafi's body, which was laid out on a mattress on the floor of an emptied-out freezer at a local shopping center. The body had apparently been stowed in the freezer in an attempt to keep it out of the public eye, but once the location was known, that intention was swept away in the overwhelming desire of residents to see the man they so deeply despised.
Men, women and children filed in to take their picture with the body. The site's guards had even organized separate visiting hours for families and single men.
A translation by British news network Sky News reveals that Gadhafi shouted at the revolutionaries, saying, “What you are doing is not allowed in Islamic law. What you are doing is forbidden in Islam!”
One man pointed a gun at Gadhafi’s head as the former Libyan leader asked, “Do you know right from wrong?”
Gadhafi then appeared to lose consciousness as one of the rebels responded, “Shut up, dog.”
MSNBC reported that other footage shows rebel fighters rolling Gadhafi’s body over the pavement, stripped to the waist with a pool of blood under his head. His body is now being kept in a commercial freezer at a shopping center as interim officials in Libya discuss where and when to bury the former dictator.
United Nations human rights spokesman Rupert Colville called the images “very disturbing,” and said that Gadhafi’s body cannot be buried until his death can be examined by the International Criminal Court.
“It is a fundamental principle of international law that people accused of serious crimes should if possible be tried,” Colville told reporters. “Summary executions are strictly illegal. It is different if someone is killed in combat.”
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