Col Muammar Gaddafi was buried in a secret desert grave at dawn on Tuesday, finally drawing a line under his 42-year rule and the eight month uprising to depose him.
A boy walks in a cemetery where soldiers loyal to Col Gaddafi are being buried in Misrata Photo: REUTERS
By Ben Farmer, Tripoli
5:59PM BST 25 Oct 2011
The rotting body of the former dictator was interred with his son Mutassim and former defence minister, Abu Bakr Younis, after their corpses had been on public display in a meat locker in Misurata for four days.
Prayers were said over the bodies and they were washed, in accordance with Muslim tradition, before being driven into the desert under cover of darkness and buried "not far" from the city.
Libya's new rulers have said the location of the unmarked grave will remain secret so it cannot be desecrated or become a place of pilgrimage for Col Gaddafi's supporters.
Ibrahim Beitalmal said a Muslim cleric, a nephew of Col Gaddafi and sons of Abu Bakr had recited prayers before the corpses were taken away for burial at around 5 am.
Abdel Majid Mlegta, a commander with the National Transitional Council (NTC), said two of Gaddafi's cousins, Mansour Dhao, a personal bodyguard and once leader of the feared People's Guard, and Ahmed Ibrahim both attended the prayers.
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Mr Dhao, who is a being held after being captured in Col Gaddafi's failed attempt to break out of the besieged city, gave new details of the dictator's final days yesterday.
He said Col Gaddafi had spent his time in Sirte moving from hideout to hideout in the ever shrinking pocket held by his loyalist fighters and swinging from rage to despair over his loss of power.
He and his entourage had no electricity and Col Gaddafi had spent his time reading and making notes. Their fighting force of around 350 men had dwindled to 150 in the later stages of the siege.
Mr Dhao said: "He was stressed, he was really angry, he was mad sometimes. Mostly, he was just sad and angry."
"He believed the Libyan people still loved him, even after we told him that Tripoli had been occupied."
Col Gaddafi had rejected suggestions he leave the country, Mr Dhao added.
"I feel sorry for him because he underestimated the situation. He could have left and gotten out of the country and lived a happy life," he said.
The former Libyan leader had also written to Silvio Berlusconi pleading with him to halt the Nato military intervention which helped rebels drive him from power, a French newspaper said.
The letter dated August 5, before Tripoli had fallen and Col Gaddafi had fled to Sirte, reproached his "friend" for supporting the war, said Paris Match.
The Colonel's favoured son and one-time heir, Seif al-Islam, remained at large on Tuesday and was poised to cross Libya's southern border into Niger, a Tuareg official in the country claimed.
Abdullah al-Senussi, former intelligence chief, was heading in the same direction, officials claimed.
Both men are wanted by the International Criminal Court for their roles in the bloody attempted suppression of Libya's February 17 revolution.
Officials in Niamey have said 32 members of Col Gaddafi's regime have already taken refuge in Niger for "humanitarian reasons" and will not be handed back to Libya's new rulers without guarantees of humane treatment.
Meanwhile a human rights group warned large numbers of weapons, including surface-to-air missiles that could down commercial airliners, are still strewn around unguarded in Libya.
Human Rights Watch said it had seen two sites near Sirte containing surface-to-air missiles and tank and mortar rounds.
America has said it is concerned anti-aircraft missiles may fall into the hands of terrorists and has sent dozens of contractors to Libya to try and hunt them down.
A British military team is hunting missing missiles in post-Gaddafi Libya, the Government said.
Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt told MPs experts were searching for surface-to-air missiles which vanished as the country descended into civil war.
Mr Burt said: "There is already a team of people from the UK assisting both in dealing with the collection of weapons of small arms and also looking after the issue in relation to the surface-to-air missiles that have gone missing in the area.
"We have also got people involved in demining and decommissioning."
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