GADDIFI TOPPLED!!!!!TRIPOLI CELEBRATING!!!!!!!!

BBC are claiming there has been an autopsy, which would explain why the bodies of Gadaffi and his son are now being displayed with only the faces uncovered. No such statement on Al Jazeera.

On Feb 17th website:

10:00am: Gaddafi’s extended family has asked for his body those of his son Mutassim and other close associates to be given to them so that they may perform a proper Islamic burial.

“We call on the UN, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Amnesty International to force the [National] Transitional Council to hand over the martyrs’ bodies to our tribe in Sirte and to allow them to perform their burial ceremony in accordance with Islamic customs and rules,” the family said in a statement released on the Syria-based pro-Gaddafi al-Rai television station.

Al Jazeera Live Blog:

39 min 21 sec ago

Military commanders in Libya have said there will not be a post-mortem examination on the body of Muammar Gaddafi, despite concerns over how he died, Sky News reports.

Even the TV News programmes and papers are giving conflicting reports .... LL

56 min 21 sec ago

Al Jazeera's James Bays spoke to some of the people in Misrata who were hoping to get a glimpse of the man who ruled Libya for 42 years.

He should have left the country when he had the chance.

He thought he was going to win and kill all of his enemies, Lily. Those he hadn't killed already, that is.

I wish they hadn't executed him. But I have to admit that it was probably for the best.
Now I just want his family to go away and shut up. They were nearly as bad as him.

bb1 wrote:Can't say personally I have too many questions about Gaddafi's death, but I suppose the UN have to go through the motions of sounding concerned.

I agree but I wish they'd shot him in that storm drain, that way he'd be gone and no pantomime to follow. I agree they acted in the only way they could. I don't have sympathy for him as such but allowing the world to see an old, obviously seriously injured man being brutalised whatever he's done, made the powers that be unable to do anything but react to it just made the entire thing a mess. He wasn't Bin Laden, there would have been no upsurge in followers, no threat to world peace to imprison him, he was belleding, begging, humiliated and trying to bargain, that was enough to send him to answer to his crimes.Killing him was an easy out for him. Tormenting him made him human.

(Please don't decimate me, I just think that on the one hand it is completely understandable what they did, how many thousands has he lightly consigned to the same fate, but those images of it..........his terror was visible, not hidden, it gave him a humanity he doesn't deserve? I hope that makes some sense?)

It makes sense to me. I found it very upsetting, that of it that I have watched. It made me feel sickened.

Well, I don't think it has been neccesary for Sky to repeat it several times an hour; that has turned it into a sort of pornography.

That said, I understand perfectly why the Libyan people needed to see it, and his corpse, so they could be sure that he was finally, really dead.

I don't think the actual moment of his death has surfaced, fortunately, but I do wonder if he might have stayed alive if it hadn't been for this business of his daughter apparently phoning him right at that moment; further abuse from a Gaddafi may have been the last straw?

I don't think the actual moment of his death has surfaced, fortunately, but I do wonder if he might have stayed alive if it hadn't been for this business of his daughter apparently phoning him right at that moment; further abuse from a Gaddafi may have been the last straw?

Isn't it bizarre that she called at that moment? I think that that definitely could have tipped the balance. I think that Gaddafi's karma caught up with him.

lily wrote:I don't think the actual moment of his death has surfaced, fortunately, but I do wonder if he might have stayed alive if it hadn't been for this business of his daughter apparently phoning him right at that moment; further abuse from a Gaddafi may have been the last straw?

Isn't it bizarre that she called at that moment? I think that that definitely could have tipped the balance. I think that Gaddafi's karma caught up with him.

I just hope she can live with herself. Her use of the word 'rats' and other abuse was, if he was still alive then, enough to cause one of the rebels to lose control and shoot. If she had, instead, been calm and polite, she just might have saved the situation. But no, she was his daughter, and as such knows no different kind of behaviour. She signed his death warrant, I hope she can face her God. I don't think he deserved to live, but at least he did deserve a trial and to have justice meted out to him, something he denied his people over 42 years, so I am sorry it happened the way it did. But I do wish the media would stop plastering the pics and videos up all over the place. he is dead, that is th eend of the matter. LL

Good morning!

Al Jazeera Live Blog:

16 min 16 sec ago

An autopsy on Muammar Gaddafi's body was carried out last night, an unnamed source who was one of thoee involved, has told the Reuters news agency.

"We worked all through the night. We just got done," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He did not reveal any of the autopsy's findings.

The autopsy was carried out at a morgue in the city of Misrata, about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli. Local officials said Gaddafi's body would now be brought back to the cold store at an old market in Misrata where it has been on public display.

17 min 16 sec ago

The Los Angeles-based Los Angeles Times has published a report today saying that Muammar Gaddafi's wealth stored in bank accounts and real estate and corporate investments around the world is now estimated to be over $200 billion.

(Full report in next post)

2 hours 18 min ago

Libya is set to mark "Liberation Sunday" today, as NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil is to address a crowd of thousands in Benghazi declaring the country's eight-month civil war officially over.

The LA Times report:

As Libya takes stock, Moammar Kadafi's hidden riches astound

New estimates of the former leader's assets — more than $200 billion — are called 'staggering.' If they prove true, he would rank among the world's most rapacious leaders.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
October 21, 2011, 6:53 p.m.

Moammar Kadafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, about $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, according to senior Libyan officials.

The new estimates of the deposed dictator's hidden cash, gold reserves and investments are "staggering," one person who has studied detailed records of the asset search said Friday. "No one truly appreciated the scope of it."

If the values prove accurate, Kadafi will go down in history as one of the most rapacious as well as one of the most bizarre world leaders, on a scale with the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire or the late Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

Kadafi's death after he was captured Thursday outside his birthplace, the coastal town of Sirte, not only all but ended the armed uprising that erupted in February. Revelation of the stunning size of the portfolio may stir anger among Libya's 6.5 million people — about one-third of whom live in poverty.

Though Kadafi's foreign investments would seem to offer a bonanza for the transitional government, it is struggling to reclaim the money because of legal barriers created by a U.N. freeze on Libyan assets and national laws designed to ensure seized assets are only released to the legal owner.

U.S. and European authorities said Friday that they intended to quickly hand over frozen assets to the transitional Libyan government. But so far, the U.N. has authorized release of only $1.5 billion from accounts in the U.S., and the Obama administration has turned over $700 million of that amount, said Marti Adams, a Treasury Department spokeswoman.

Some African nations were reluctant to freeze Libyan accounts at all because of their loyalty to Kadafi. Others feared that freezing Libyan assets could hurt their domestic economies as bills and workers went unpaid.

During his 42 years in power, Kadafi steered aid and investment to benefit his own family and tribe, but denied support for much of the country, especially the eastern region that historically resisted his family's despotic grip on power.

Obama administration officials were stunned last spring when they found $37 billion in Libyan regime accounts and investments in the United States, and they quickly froze the assets before Kadafi or his aides could move them.

Governments in France, Italy, England and Germany seized control of another $30 billion or so. Investigators estimated that Kadafi had stashed perhaps another $30 billion elsewhere in the world, for a total of about $100 billion.

But subsequent investigations by American, European and Libyan authorities determined that Kadafi secretly sent tens of billions more abroad over the years and made sometimes lucrative investments in nearly every major country, including much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, officials said Friday.

Most of the money was under the name of government institutions such as the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Libyan National Oil Corp. and the Libya African Investment Portfolio. But investigators said Kadafi and his family members could access any of the money if they chose to.

The new $200 billion figure is about double the prewar annual economic output of Libya, which has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa.

Officials of the transitional government point to the secret transfer of so much wealth as proof that Kadafi, who once gave himself the title "King of Kings," had imperial ambitions for himself but little concern for most Libyans.

Kadafi was sending vast sums abroad "at a time when Libyans were struggling for the money they needed for schools, hospitals and all sorts of infrastructure," said one person close to the council, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are ongoing.

Investigators believe Kadafi's foreign investments accelerated in recent years. Almost all the assets and accounts found in the United States were from the last four or five years, after Kadafi surrendered a nascent nuclear weapons program and moved toward restoring full diplomatic relations with Washington.

In addition to the vast foreign investments, Kadafi is believed to have amassed billions of dollars in gold reserves inside Libya, possibly for use in case his rule was threatened. Western authorities believe Kadafi and his aides secretly maneuvered to bring some of the cash back to Tripoli to help pay for their war effort.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an NBC interviewer Thursday that rebel forces had worried that Kadafi could still "be recruiting mercenaries, paying with the gold they believe he had absconded with."

Western officials have struggled all year not only to identify Kadafi's money but also to convince countries such as India, China and Russia to seize Libyan investments as required by a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Investigations last spring found Libyan regime investments in several high-profile Western ventures, including the Italian soccer club Juventus, the Italian bank UniCredit and the British publisher Pearson, which owns the Financial Times newspaper.

Officials now believe other assets include accounts held by Kadafi family members with money drawn from national oil sales.

Steven Cook, a Mideast specialist at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said it was known that Kadafi had invested heavily in nearby African nations, since he sought to build and lead a pan-African alliance.

"But all this, of course, goes way beyond that," Cook said.

Good God!

That is obscene. And no doubt his family will continue to live in luxury. But I doubt they will ever dare to return to Libya.

bb1 wrote:Good God!

You are surprised? I am not! Practically all the dictators over the last 100 years have salted away copious amounts of gold etc, the exception being, it would seem, Hitler, who actually lived quite modestly. The looting of the artworks etc was done by his subordinates, like Goring, but as far as I know Hitler only owned the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, Austria - even his home in Berlin was state owned. God knows how much there is in stolen goods hidden around the world by Gadaffi, Marcus, Saleh, Trujillo, Bokcasa, Idi Amin, Mubarak, Hodj and Ben Wotsit of Tunisia, let alone what Mugabe has stolen from his people - and don't forget the Yemeni chap or Assad of Syria. They haven't found all the stuff hidden by Ceascescu, let alone the old Soviet heads of State of the now free European states. And you can bet the Gadaffi brats have loads hidden too, they were/are as rapacious as their madman of a father. LL

This salting away of Billions is part of their final demize, although it always seems to take a large number of years. But the worms always turn in the end.

What I don't understand is why these despots hang on until the bitter end. They don't need even more money, and yet they risk their lives to stay in power.
Gaddafi could so easily have departed to safety months ago when it was obvious to the world at large that he couldn't win. So why couldn't he see it?

And as for offering untold riches in exchange for his life, I think that this is what blew it for him. That he had it to offer in the first place when it wasn't even his, and that he thought it would appease the people he tormented was a major miscalculation. He could have taken them all out of poverty before it came to this.

I don't suppose we will ever know just what was said in the final moments of Gaddafi's life, but I do wonder if his daughter's phone call, and the business of the money, was the last straw for his captors.

Another rat has surfaced:

Musa Kusa traced to Qatar resort
Press Association – 57 minutes ago

Libya's former foreign minister has been traced to a luxury resort in Qatar, according to reports.

Musa Kusa is believed to have been an intelligence officer at the time of the 1988 Lockerbie bomb atrocity in which 270 people were killed. He made a high-profile defection to Britain in March and was interviewed by police and Scottish prosecutors investigating the bombing.

He left the country following an EU decision to lift sanctions against him, meaning he no longer faces travel restrictions or an asset freeze. Kusa was traced by the BBC's Panorama programme, which is investigating allegations that he tortured political prisoners in Libya. He declined to comment on the claims.

Kusa was head of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence agency from 1994 and a senior intelligence agent when PanAm flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie. The Boeing 747 jumbo jet was en route from London to New York when it exploded over the Dumfriesshire town, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 residents. Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was jailed for mass murder in 2001 but was returned to Tripoli in 2009 on compassionate grounds after doctors treating him for prostate cancer gave him an estimated three months to live. He is still alive.

There have also been calls for Kusa to be quizzed in relation to the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot during a protest outside London's Libyan Embassy in 1984.

bb1 wrote:I don't suppose we will ever know just what was said in the final moments of Gaddafi's life, but I do wonder if his daughter's phone call, and the business of the money, was the last straw for his captors.

Sounds like it to me, Bonny. It was outrageous. If someone had made my life a misery and then offered me money when I had them over a barrel, while their daughter screamed abuse in my ear, I might just have lost my cool. I hope not, but it is possible.

Anyway, it's done now, and they won't be giving up the young boy who is reported to have done the deed. What would be the point?

Kusa's turned up, has he? I confess, I was uneasy about him being allowed into the UK; I assume he was of use in the famous bigger picture...

Sabot, I said throughout the uprising that I wished someone would just put a bullet in the barsteward and end Libya's suffering, so I am not going to be hypocritical and pretend I care that someone finally did.

There wouldn't be nearly as many shrieks from the Yuman Rites brigade if the only pictorial record had been a few grainy b/w pics a la Mussolini and his girlfriend.

The media were broadcasting the whole thing almost as it happened, thanks to camera phones, then they kept showing it over and over again.

I'd think Bliar, Brown and the likes of Mandelson, Prince Andrew and Rothschild are all quite relieved Gadaffi was killed and didn't get the chance to spill the beans.

Did you know Gadaffi's son was a guest of Prince Andrew's at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace?

http://welshrepublic.com/?p=1187

I am, I suppose, a pacifist; I don't like war, I was born at the beginning of one and have seen too many in my lifetime. But I hold no brief for a savage madman who kills his own people; who calls in mercenaries from outside to rape, torture and kill; who salts away untold riches while his people starve, remain uneducated, live in total daily fear of someone smashing down their door and being dragged off to die at the hands of his security thugs. I hope his last moments were as full of fear as they could possibly be; I hope his wounds hurt and that he got the beating he deserved, and I am glad he died like the cur he was, bleating for mercy and promising what was not his to promise. And I hope his screams ring in the ears of his benighted apology of a daughter until her demise.
There, I have now said all I am going to say on this. Lamplighter

I have long been a bit doubtful about The Lockerbie Bomber, especially as the father of one of the victims has said that he believes the man is innocent, and since one of the men sent by Gaddafi was found not guilty.

So, Yes, I want to know what actually happened. How much did Gaddafi pay to the families of the two accused to take the fall? And just who were these two men in the order of things? He's dead, so the truth can't hurt him now. And I very much doubt they are going to get Mehgrabi back.

My own belief is that Magrahi was involved, Sabot, but he didn't act alone, and he didn't just wake up one morning and decide to stick a bomb on an airliner.

There is nothing for him to be brought back for; whether anyone else likes it or not, the plane blew up over Scotland and crashed down on Scotland.

Test the case - if a BA plane was blown up over Texas, would the UK have jurisdiction over Texas? Of course not.

I would think that once things have quietened down, the new Libyan government will start releasing material and files to the Scottish police, and to the crown - it is still an open case.

Magrahi is, ironically, now surplus to requirements, besides his own family, no-one greatly cares about him besides Jim Swire's group and the East Refrewshire Social Work department.

He has done something useful, though - apparently, the new, expensive drugs Gaddafi supplied to keep him alive all this time hadn't been trialled properly before, but NICE should approve them shortly, thanks to him kindly acting as a human guinea pig.

I didn't much follow the trial at the time, Bonny, so I don't know. But if Gaddafi organized the whole thing, which I suspect, I very much doubt he would have allowed the real perpetrators to be handed over. Especially if they could be connected to him.
So let's hope it all comes out.

And Yes to the drugs. They obviously work, even if only for a time.

I was looking at some old pics of Magrahi's return to Libya a while back, Sabot, and he doesn't look all that happy. In this one:




he looks more as if he is being bundled down the steps by guards. He bears little resemblance to the man who was in court ten years previously:



I know he is dying, but to me there is something more than that in the pics of him back in Libya; he looks haunted and scared a lot of the time.