Thousands of people lined up in Misrata, Libya, on Thursday evening to see the two corpses laid out for viewing on a private driveway—that of Moammar Gadhafi and of a son, Mutasim.
"It seems people won't believe unless they see him for themselves," Ridha al-Muntasir, a Misrata businessman who has bankrolled anti-Gadhafi fighters, said by telephone.
How the longtime Libyan leader met his end was subject to conflicting reports.
Fighters from the Misrata Military Council, who had fought since Sept. 15 to take Gadhafi's hometown, Sirte, mounted operations Thursday morning that aimed to mop up what were estimated to be only dozens of pro-Gadhafi fighters cornered in the city, and to take the central, fortress-like Ouagadougou Conference Hall, constructed to host pan-African summits, said two Misratan fighters who have been on the front lines.
On Thursday morning, the Misrata fighters had mopped up areas of town where snipers had been holding out and taken the conference center. It was during these operations, with no intelligence about Gadhafi's whereabouts, that the fighters said the former strongman was found.
Fighters had surrounded the center before but said they were repulsed by pro-Gadhafi snipers who had taken up high points throughout Sirte's center in an efficient defensive ring.
Meanwhile on Thursday, North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces bombed a convoy leaving Sirte. A person familiar with the operation said 75 to 100 vehicles "appeared to be attacking civilians as it made an attempt to break out of Sirte." A Pentagon spokesman said it had "no identification" of who had been in the convoy.
Misrata media committee member Ayman al-Sahli, who said he had been in Sirte, said Gadhafi had been in the convoy with former defense minister Abu Baker Younis and others. The convoy was hit by a NATO missile, he said, and the passengers crawled into a drainage pipe.
Mr. Sahli said rebels who found them later clashed with the group, killing Mr. Younis and a son and taking Gadhafi alive without a firefight. Other Misratans including Mr. Muntasir, who spoke with fighters, disputed that report. They said Gadhafi was found wounded in the face and leg at an underground bunker inside Sirte.
Footage released later by fighters from Misrata who captured Gadhafi showed him apparently still alive, with blood streaming down his face and surrounded by a mob of bearded fighters shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."The video shows them attempting to hoist him onto the hood of a truck. A fighter waves a pistol and another looks to the camera and says: "He's alive."
What happened next is unclear. A Misrata Military Council spokesman said Gadhafi had been shot and wounded in Sirte and died in an ambulance en route to Misrata. Libya's interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said a slightly wounded Gadhafi was taken from a sewage pipe without resistance, then shot in the right arm as troops began to move him. He said Gadhafi was put in a car that was then caught in a firefight between revolutionary and Gadhafi-allied fighters, and that Gadhafi was shot in the head in the crossfire.
The BBC and other media outlets said Gadhafi was shot and killed by an 18-year-old wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, who used a gold-plated pistol found with Gadhafi. Misratans who had been in Sirte earlierin the day confirmed that Gadhafi was executed, shortly after his capture but said they weren't sure of the killer's identity.
Footage aired on Qatar's al-Jazeera television channel then showed his body at the feet of fighters outside what Misratans later said was a hospital in Misrata. His chest was bare and there appeared to be a wound on the side of his head. His bloodied shirt hung from one arm and twisted around his body as he was turned around on the ground for the camera.
After Gadhafi died, his body was flown to a hospital in Misrata by helicopter from a rebel field hospital near Sirte. A National Transitional Council official said Gadhafi would be buried at a secret location.
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