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| Ghadafi's body to be released to his family |
| News - Global |
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MOAMAR Ghadafi's extended family will be allowed to bury the former Libyan dictator, but the location of the grave will be secret under the terms of a deal struck with the country's ruling Transitional National Council (TNC). The handover of the body could be almost immediate, Sky News reported Saturday, with Ghadafi remaining unburied days after he was shot dead outside his home town of Sirte on Thursday. Islamic tradition is that the deceased should be buried within 24 hours.
TNC foreign affairs spokesman Ahmed Jibreel said the handover may be imminent, but he admitted it had not yet been decided where the dictator will be buried. Jibreel told Sky News, "I think the decision has been taken already, which is to hand over the body of Ghadafi to his extended family. "There are consultations between the TNC and with people from Sirte on whom the body should be handed over to. Some [relatives] are in Sirte and some in other cities. We expect this to happen very soon. If not in the coming hours, it will be in a few days. "It is in the interests of his family and the whole country to bury Ghadafi in a secret place but this has not been decided yet." The news came as Libya's interim premier Mahmoud Jibril confirmed he would step down after seven months in power as the country celebrates its "liberation" Sunday. Freedom is set to be formally declared in Benghazi -- the location a recognition of the city's key role in the uprising. Jibril said the country's leaders needed to show "resolve in the next few days" to avoid Libya descending into in-fighting and factionalism. "And the other thing depends mainly on the Libyan people -- whether they differentiate between the past and the future. I am counting on them to look ahead and remember the kind of agony they went through in the last 42 years. We need to seize this very limited opportunity," he said. The announcement of liberation will set in motion a plan for a new government and constitutional assembly, leading to full democracy in 2013. Meanwhile, the TNC announced Saturday that it would pay £450 million ($717 million) to victims of Irish Republican Army (IRA) semtex bombings that used explosives sourced from Libya. The deal will see families of IRA victims killed by Libyan semtex receive £6.3 million each, while those who were injured will get about £1.9 million. A total of 156 victims or families of victims will receive the payouts, The (London) Sunday Times reported. Among attacks carried out with the imported plastic explosive were the Harrods department store bombing in 1983, which killed six among Christmas shopping crowds, and the Enniskillen tragedy of 1987 that left 11 dead in Northern Ireland. And as hundreds of people lined up to see Ghadafi's body in Misrata -- between Sirte and Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast -- his final hiding place in his home city was revealed by the Times: a single-story house with no electricity, stocked only with instant meals. "Ghadafi was hiding here until everyone ran away," said Adel Hussein Saiti, 42, the street's "commander." Rebels picked through the indications of Ghadafi's residency, including a cranberry woven silk waistcoat, with a handmade gold-striped tie and some Italian shirts. "Only Ghadafi would wear this," one fighter sneered. When Ghadafi was captured after fleeing in a convoy Thursday morning, it was reported by London newspaper The Daily Mirror that he tried to buy his life by offering his captors money. Rebel commander Hammad Mufti Ali, 28, told the newspaper, "He said he was willing to offer anything in exchange for his life. He said he had money and gold for us. "Ghadafi was clearly very frightened. He kept saying that he had money and he was willing to pay for our children to go to school. At one point someone screamed at him that instead of talking about money, as a good Muslim he should have been praying for his soul to be entrusted to God before dying." 23Rd October 2011 Source: Herald Sun |