The circumstances are not fully clear, but the leader has shared the fate of many Libyans in this conflict. NATO have said that a French jet bombed 2 military vehicles in a convoy leaving the area of Sirte at 8.30 am local time. Other reports from the USA sugggest a predator drone was involved. In addition, "Sky sources" claim that the RAF was involved in seriously injuring Saif al-Islam, also in Sirte.

Video evidence shows Muammar Gaddafi was alive, although perhaps injured, when captured and surrounded by a rebel mob:

The last words of Colonel Gaddafi on the video were "This is wrong, this is against Islamic law," and then he said to his abusers: "Do you know right from wrong?"

He (or his body) was taken to Misrata. It has become pretty standard practice for the rebels to kill their prisoners, particularly those with darker skin, a trend set in the early days when prisoners were massacred and the crime blamed on loyalist forces to provide propaganda for a NATO intervention.

Rebel eyewitnesses in Sirte claimed to Sky News that they shot Gaddafi in the stomach with a 9mm revolver and video footage confirms a shot in the stomach. The late assertion by the NTC that Gaddafi was killed by a shot to the head during a firefight between the rebels and his supporters after he had been loaded onto a rebel vehicle on the way to hospital is typical of the attitude of the rebels toward the truth. Muammar’s son, Mutassim was captured at the same time and has been pictured still alive after capture, drinking water and smoking a cigarette and before being murdered with a shot through the neck.

On the death of Mutassim the Mahmoud Jibril said:

"As for Mutassim there is a wound in the head and a break in the skull and five bullets in the back and one in the neck."

Muammar Gaddafi’s body was later filmed being dragged through the streets of Misrata and then put on display in Misrata for people to photograph with their mobile phones. A familiar scene fro those who have watched earlier the rebel atrocities such as the lynchings at the rebel HQ in Benghazi.

Obviously the killing of captives and abuse of corpses are war crimes; ones which have been practiced on a large scale by the Libyan rebels, since the beginning of the rebellion, with the full approval and participation of their leadership as we have seen in numerous videos including  this one:

Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Offce have said that it is essential to conduct a full, independent and impartial inquiry to establish the circumstances of Colonel al-Gaddafi’s death but the current international practice, of course, is one law for NATO’s adversaries and no law for NATO and its proxies. It has been reported that, according to Mahmoud Jibril the International Criminal Court initially asked that one of its forensic investigators be allowed to examine Muammar’s body but then decided to accept the post-mortem report provided by the NTC.

The barbaric deaths of Muammar and his son at the hands of the NATO-backed rebels are only a surprise to those who have depended on the mainstream media and the NATO propaganda machine for their information on this conflict. There needs to be a full inquiry by human rights activists into how the media, people across the political spectrum and humanitarian organisations were hijacked into supporting or remaining silent in the face of the NATO bombing campaign, the ethnic cleaning and atrocities committed against black people and the subversion of democratic, civilised discourse which the Libyan conflict marks.

(updated 21 October)

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