Doctor says Gaddafi killed by bullet in stomach

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."

Libya's interim rulers said Muammer Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters overran his hometown Sirte.
Gaddafi's killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.
NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of the Gaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information.
Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi looks on during a news conference at the Quirinale palace in Rome in this June 10, 2009 file photo.
Gaddafi's killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.
National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta said that Gaddafi was also hit in his head.
Abdel Majid Mlegta said that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked.
An anti-Gaddafi fighter said Gaddafi had been found hiding in a hole in the ground and had said "Don't shoot, don't shoot" to the men who grabbed him.
Gaddafi's capture followed within minutes of the fall of Sirte, a development that extinguished the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader.
The capture of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi means Libya's ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get under way after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi's rule, had fallen.
Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on August 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.
NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the center of a newly-captured Sirte neighborhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.
Hundreds of NTC troops had surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that killed and wounded scores of the besieging forces and an unknown number of defenders.
NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of the Gaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information.
Gaddafi was born in 1942, the son of a Bedouin herdsman, in a tent near Sirte on the Mediterranean coast.
Gaddafi was the Arab world's longest serving leader. With no official government function, he was known as the 'Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution.'
Libyan refugees in Tunisia celebrate after hearing news that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in Sirte.
Libyan refugees in Tunisia celebrate after hearing news that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in Sirte.

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Doc says Gaddafi killed by bullet in stomach

Revolutionary Libyan fighters inspect a storm drain where they claim Muammar Gaddafi was found wounded in Sirte, Libya.

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 Mo'tassim after he was killed on Thursday, said his findings indicated he had died after his father.

"(As for) Mo'tassim, 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.

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