Misrata: Libyan forensic doctors carried out an autopsy overnight on the body of Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader killed last week, one of the people involved in the autopsy told Reuters on Sunday.
"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 200km east of Tripoli.
Cold store
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.
Post mortem had been ruled out
Libyan military commanders in Misrata on Saturday ruled out a post-mortem on the body of Muammar Gaddafi despite questions as to how the toppled dictator had died.
Interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said an investigation was under way into the circumstances of Gaddafi’s death following his capture, bloodied but still alive, during the fall of his hometown Sirte on Thursday.
But the military leader-ship in Misrata, where Gaddafi’s body had been stored in a vegetable market freezer and was again put on display for hundreds of onlookers yesterday, insisted the inquiry would involve no autopsy.
“There will be no post-mortem today, nor any day,” Misrata military council spokesman Fa’thi Al Bashagha was quoted as saying. “No one is going to open up his body.”
Questions remain over how Gaddafi met his end after National Transitional Council fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following Nato air strikes.
In a video circulating on the internet, a young fighter from Benghazi claims he shot Gaddafi twice after capturing him — once under the arm and once in the head. He says he died half an hour later.
Bruises on his torso
Unlike on Friday, Gaddafi’s body was covered by a blanket that left only his head exposed, hiding bruises on his torso and scratch marks on his chest that had earlier been visible.
Gaddafi’s widow, Safia, who fled to Algeria in August, called on the UN to investigate the circumstances of her husband’s death, Syria-based Arrai television said.
Libya’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Al Sanussi, meanwhile, surfaced in neighbouring Niger following the fall of the oasis town of Bani Walid. Saif Al Islam too remains at large. NTC officials said that he too may have fled to Niger.
