Gaddafi buried in unknown location: NTC

TRIPOLI

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was buried early Tuesday morning in a secret location in the desert, Al-Jazeera television reported, quoting an official of the ruling Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC).

The report didn't give further details on the burial. The body of Gaddafi's son Mutassim and his defence minister Abu Bakr Younis were also interred, CNN reported.

The burial ended a rare, disturbing nearly five-day public display of Gaddafi's corpse in a cold meat storage container in the western Libyan coastal city of Misrata. Mutassim's body was also put on show in the container.  

Reuters reported on Monday NTC fighters guarding the corpses "placed plastic sheeting” under the bodies as fluids leaked.

Footage on Al Jazeera TV showed that people were still being allowed into the temporary morgue to visit and take photos of the rotting corpses on Monday evening.  

Gaddafi's tribe and family demanded the corpses be handed over to them for a quick burial in Sirte under Islamic traditions.

However, the request was turned down by the NTC, which had been divided on the rite, time and location for Gaddafi's burial.

NTC’s Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Monday that in response to international calls, the NTC has started to form a committee to look into the circumstances of Gaddafi's killing after he was captured in Sirte last week.

Jalil said that "those who helped Muammar Gaddafi" have played an effective role in killing him. The NTC chief did not elaborate on his claim.  

Gaddafi, who ruled Libya with an iron grip, and his son Mutassim were captured alive on Thursday when NTC forces wrested full control of his hometown of Sirte. Both of them died in murky circumstances shortly after being seized by NTC fighters.

On Friday, the United Nations human rights body called for an investigations into how Gaddafi was killed after satellite TV channels broadcast footage of Gaddafi being captured, wounded but alive with blood stains on the face and then pushed by fighters onto a truck, and another video later emerging showing Gaddafi's body on the lap of a fighter with a bullet hole in his head.

The mysterious clouds hovering over Gaddafi's death have already dented the NTC's credibility.

Mishan al-Jbouri, owner of a pro-Gaddafi television channel based in Syria, told Xinhua in an interview that after the whole world saw the ugly way Gaddafi was killed, no country would risk handing the rest of the family to the NTC.