Who Killed Gadhafi? Conflicting Stories Emerge
Muammar Gadhafi was captured alive near Sirte on 20 October 2011 and died within hours. How he died became the subject of competing accounts.
On 20 October 2011, a convoy fleeing Sirte was hit by NATO air strikes. Libyan revolutionary fighters found Muammar Gadhafi hiding in a drainage pipe nearby. Mobile phone videos showed him alive, bloodied and being beaten by a crowd of fighters. Within hours he was dead, and his body was displayed in a cold-storage room in Misrata.
The competing accounts
- The official version. Libya's National Transitional Council initially said Gadhafi had been killed in crossfire between his supporters and revolutionary fighters as he was being taken away.
- Summary execution. Human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch, later concluded from video evidence and witness testimony that Gadhafi, his son Mutassim and dozens of captured loyalists had been killed in custody.
- Individual claims. Several fighters claimed to have fired the fatal shot, and one young fighter was widely filmed brandishing what he said was Gadhafi's gold pistol.
Why it mattered
Calls for an investigation came from the United Nations and Western governments, but no one was brought to justice. The manner of Gadhafi's death set a troubling precedent for the new Libya, where armed groups acted with impunity. It also fed Russian and Chinese objections to the NATO intervention, which they said had exceeded its mandate to protect civilians.