Misrata: Libya's interim rulers ended the public display of the bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son and army chief yesterday after four days in which thousands of Libyans came to see for themselves that the dictator was really dead.
Guards locked the gates to the compound surrounding the cold storage container where the grim parody of the lying in state typically accorded to deceased leaders had been played out.
That may signal a decision is near over how and where to bury the bodies or simply that they are seen as a health hazard. Two National Transitional Council (NTC) officials confirmed the decision to shut off the area to the public, giving no reason.
"That's enough," said one of the guards. "He's been causing us as much trouble dead as he did alive."
A steady stream of visitors filed in to view the spectacle yesterday before the closure, but far fewer than on previous days when crowds flocked to the container where the three rotting bodies were laid out on filthy mattresses.
Gaddafi and his son died after being captured, wounded but alive — some of their final moments captured on video.
However, few Libyans are troubled about either how they were killed or why they are being kept exposed to public view for so long, something against Islamic tradition which normally dictates burial within a day.
Example to others
"God made the pharaoh as an example to the others," said Salem Shaka, visiting the bodies yesterday. "If he had been a good man, we would have buried him.
"But he chose this destiny for himself."
Another man, who said he had driven 400km to see the bodies, said: "I came here to make sure with my own eyes... All Libyans must see him."
The killing of fallen autocrats is far from a novelty — in Europe in living memory, similar fates befell Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania in 1989 and Benito Mussolini, who had created modern Libya as an Italian colony a decade before he died in 1945.
However, some of the anti-Gaddafi rebels' foreign allies have expressed disquiet about the treatment of Gaddafi both after his capture and after his death and worry that Libya's new leaders will not uphold their promise to respect human rights.
Wrangling factions
The burials have been held up by wrangling between the emerging factions within the National Transitional Council over where they should be interred.
The NTC wants the bodies buried in a secret location to prevent the grave becoming a shrine for Gaddafi loyalists. But authorities in Misrata, a city whose siege by Gaddafi's forces made it a symbol of the revolt, do not want the body interred under their soil. Gaddafi's tribe centred around the city of Sirte where he made his last stand has asked for the body so they can bury it there.
