Gaddafi's Killer Will Be Prosecuted When Caught, Libya's Interim Government Says

NTC Official: Gaddafi's Killer Will Be Prosecuted When Caught

The person responsible for the death of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi will be prosecuted, Libya's interim government has said.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, deputy chief of the National Transitional Council (NTC), said that anyone proven to have shot and killed Gaddafi would be brought to justice.

"With regards to Gaddafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us," he told the al-Arabiya satellite channel.

He added: "We had already launched an investigation. We have issued a code of ethics in handling of prisoners of war. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army. Whoever is responsible for that will be judged and given a fair trial."

Previously the NTC has insisted that Gaddafi was shot accidentally in 'crossfire' after his arrest.

But footage released after the former leader's death, which showed him wounded and being violently assaulted by his captors, lead to international criticism and calls for an investigation.

In agreeing to launch an inquiry the NTC will likely face resistance from many of those who fought on its side to oust Gaddafi, including the military leadership in Misrata where there is little sympathy for the way he died.

"Everybody knows who caught him and who fought the most during the past nine months," an official there has said, according to The Guardian. "It was us. It was no one else."

In a video released days after Gaddafi's death, an NTC fighter from Misrata, who identified himself as Senad el-Sadik el-Ureybi, said that he had killed the former leader.

"We grabbed him. I hit him in the face," the man said in Arabic, as reported by The Global Post and others. "Some fighters wanted to take him away and that's when I shot him twice, in the head and in the chest."

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