Gaddafi 'killed by bullet in stomach'

2011-10-21 12:12

Dubai - Muammar Gaddafi was fatally wounded by a bullet in his intestines following his capture, according to a doctor who examined his body, amid conflicting accounts of how the fugitive former Libyan leader met his end.

Gaddafi, 69, was killed on Thursday after being captured by the Libyan fighters he once scorned as "rats", who overran his last bastion of resistance in his hometown, Sirte - the culmination of an eight-month uprising against his 42-year rule.

"Gaddafi was arrested while he was alive but he was killed later. There was a bullet and that was the primary reason for his death, it penetrated his gut," doctor Ibrahim Tika told Al Arabiya television. "Then there was another bullet in the head that went in and out of his head."

Earlier, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, reading what he said was a post-mortem report, said Gaddafi was hauled unresisting from a "sewage pipe", shot in the arm and put in a truck which was "caught in crossfire" as it ferried him to hospital.

Jerky footage showed a man with Gaddafi's distinctive long, curly hair, bloodied and staggering under blows from armed men, apparently NTC fighters.

Tika, who also examined Gaddafi's son Mutassim after he was killed on Thursday, said his findings indicated he had died after his father.

"[As for] Mutassim, there was an injury, a big opening in the area above his chest and directly under his neck. There were three injuries from the rear in his back and at the back of his leg and there was a shrapnel but it was a few days old in his leg," Tika said.

"The condition of the blood proves that he was killed after Gaddafi," he added.

Tika said he had not seen the body of another son of Gaddafi's, Saif al-Islam who is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Saif al-Islam, once seen as heir-apparent to his father, had variously been reported to be surrounded, captured or killed.

- Reuters