Misrata: Military commanders in the Libyan
city of Misrata said on Saturday that no post-mortem would be
carried out on the body of Muammar Gaddafi despite concerns
over how the ousted strongman died.
"There will be no post-mortem today, nor any day," Misrata
military council spokesman Fathi al-Bashaagha said.
"No one is going to open up his body." His comments were
confirmed by two other Misrata military commanders.
Bashaagha said that the new regime's military commander
for the capital, Abdelhakim Belhaj, was expected to travel to
Misrata later today to view the corpse of the man who ruled
Libya with an iron rod for 42 years.
But he said there were no immediate plans for National
Transitional Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil to visit.
"Abdel Jajil did not come yesterday and is not coming today,
and for the moment it is not expected that he will come."
Gaddafi's body has been stored in a freezer in a Misrata
vegetable market since it was brought to the city on Thursday
following his death in still unexplained circumstances during
the fall of his hometown Sirte.
Abdel Jalil, meanwhile, told reporters in Benghazi that
Gaddafi's death was being investigated without any reference
to a post-mortem examination.
"Yes," he answered when asked if the case was being
investigated. He declined to take any further questions during
a visit to injured fighters in a hospital.
Overnight, the body of Gaddafi's son and national security
chief Mutassim, who also died during the fall of Sirte, was
brought to the same makeshift mortuary and laid out beside him
and dozens of curious residents queued this morning to view
the two bloodied bodies laid out on mattresses on the floor.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 17:58