Gadhafi's Body Displayed At Private House 
 
 The dead body of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was on display today in a private house in the rebel stronghold of Misrata. Reporter Marine Olivesi was there and tells Melissa Block the home was crowded with Libyans eager to take a photo with the corpse of their former leader. 
 
 Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. 
 
 ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. 
 
 MELISSA BLOCK, host: I'm Melissa Block. And we begin this hour with the death of a dictator. 
 
 (SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING) 
 
 BLOCK: Shaky video broadcast on Al-Jazeera shows men in the Libyan city of Sirte jostling around the body of Moammar Gadhafi. He's lying shirtless and bloodied on the ground. 
 
 SIEGEL: Gadhafi ruled Libya for 42 years, a regime of extreme brutality. Today, his opponents said that chapter has been closed. 
 
 (SOUNDBITE OF TV BROADCAST) 
 
 UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Through Translator) We announce to the world - we announce to the world the - that Moammar Gadhafi has been killed. 
 
 BLOCK: That announcement came from Libya's Transitional National Council. Celebration erupted in Tripoli, and here in Washington, D.C., President Obama said this is a momentous day in the history of Libya. 
 
 President BARACK OBAMA: The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted, and with this enormous promise, the Libyan people now have a great responsibility: to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Gadhafi's dictatorship. 
 
 SIEGEL: The circumstances of the Libyan leader's death remain unclear. We know there was heavy fighting in Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown and stronghold. Video has circulated of him captured alive but injured, and leaders of the new Libyan government say he was shot and killed in a gun battle between his captors and his supporters. 
 
 BLOCK: Gadhafi's body was taken from Sirte to the city of Misrata, and that's where we've reached freelance reporter Marine Olivesi. Marine, I gather, you saw the body of Moammar Gadhafi. 
 
 MARINE OLIVESI: The bodies of both Moammar Gadhafi and his son Mutassim Gadhafi have been brought to an individual house about 15 minutes drive from the center of Misrata. It's really unclear how he ended up there. It's been very difficult to look at him exactly. There were several rumors about his location, but we saw him in the main hallway of that private house. His body is lying on a mattress. There are people around trying to take pictures with him. It's clear that he was injured to the chest. He received several gunshots to the chest. He is lying there just with pants on, and, again, people crowding around, trying to get a picture of themselves with the dead body of Moammar Gadhafi. 
 
 BLOCK: And the people who are crowding around, Marine, these are people who live in Misrata? These are fighters? 
 
 OLIVESI: These are all people from Misrata. A lot of them have been fighting. People in Misrata, it has a specific meaning to them that the body was brought here because, as one of the Misrati here told me, they have been waiting for that moment for so long, and the town has suffered so much through the Libyan revolution. 
 
 I mean, one person beside me couldn't wait to get a picture with Moammar Gadhafi so that he can show his mom because he lost two brothers in the siege of Misrata, and that would mean a lot to his mother to see for herself the dead body of Moammar Gadhafi. So there's a sense of closure, it felt like it, for a lot of people here, for who the death of Moammar Gadhafi marks the end of those eight months and the end of the Libyan revolution. 
 
 BLOCK: I've been talking with freelance reporter Marine Olivesi. She's in the Libyan city of Misrata, where the body of Moammar Gadhafi was taken today. Marine, thank you very much. 
 
 OLIVESI: You're welcome. 
 
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 NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. ||||| Revolutionary fighters celebrate the capture of Sirte, Libya, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. Officials in Libya's transitional government said Moammar Gadhafi was captured and possibly killed Thursday when... (Associated Press) 
 
 Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's dictator for 42 years until he was ousted in an uprising-turned-civil war, was killed Thursday as revolutionary fighters overwhelmed his hometown of Sirte and captured the last major bastion of resistance two months after his regime fell. 
 
 Interim government officials said one of Gadhafi's sons, his former national security adviser Muatassim, was also killed in Sirte and another, one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, was wounded and captured. 
 
 The 69-year-old Gadhafi is the first leader to be killed in the Arab Spring wave of popular uprisings that swept the Middle East, demanding the end of autocratic rulers and the establishment of greater democracy. 
 
 "We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Moammar Gadhafi has been killed," Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in the capital Tripoli. 
 
 His death decisively ends a regime that had turned Libya into an international pariah and ran the oil-rich nation by the whim and brutality of its notoriously eccentric leader. Libya stands on the cusp of a new era, but its turmoil may not be over. The former rebels who now rule are disorganized and face rebuilding a country virtually without institutions by Gadhafi's design. They have already shown signs of infighting, with divisions between geographical areas and Islamist and more secular ideologies. 
 
 Libya's new leaders had said they would declare the country's "liberation" after the fall of Sirte. 
 
 President Obama said Gadhafi's death "marks the end of a long and painful chapter" for Libya. Vice President Joe Biden said the Libyan people had rid themselves of a dictator and have now "got a chance" with Gadhafi gone. 
 
 Footage aired on Arab TV networks showed Gadhafi was captured wounded but alive in Sirte. The goateed, balding Gadhafi is seen in a blood-soaked shirt, and his face bloodied. Standing upright, he is shoved along by a crowd of fighters on a Sirte roadside, chanting "God is great." 
 
 Gadhafi appears to struggle against them, stumbling and shouting as the fighters push him onto the hood of a pickup truck. 
 
 "We want him alive. We want him alive," one man shouts before Gadhafi is dragged away, some fighters pulling his hair, toward an ambulance. Later footage showed fighters rolling Gadhafi's lifeless body over on the pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. 
 
 Out of initial confusion, a clearer picture began to emerge of Gadhafi's last hours, though there were still contradictions. 
 
 Most accounts agreed Gadhafi had been holed up with heavily armed supporters in the last few buildings held by regime loyalists in his Mediterranean coastal hometown of Sirte, furiously battling advancing revolutionary fighters. 
 
 At one point, a convoy tried to flee and was hit by NATO airstrikes, carried out by French warplanes. France's Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said the 80-vehicle convoy was carrying Gadhafi and was trying to escape the city. The strikes stopped the convoy but did not destroy it, and then revolutionary fighters moved in on the vehicle carrying Gadhafi himself. 
 
 Fathi Bashaga, spokesman for the Misrata military council, whose forces were involved in the Sirte siege, said fighters encircled the convoy and exchanged fire with several of the vehicles. In one, they found Gadhafi, wounded in the neck, and took him to an ambulance. "What do you want?" Gadhafi said to the approaching revolutionaries, Bashaga said, citing witnesses. 
 
 Gadhafi bled to death from his wounds a half-hour later, he said. 
 
 Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance and examined it, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, to the head and chest. 
 
 "You can't imagine my happiness today. I can't describe my happiness," he told The Associated Press. "The tyranny is gone. Now the Libyan people can rest." 
 
 Gadhafi's body was then paraded through the streets of the nearby city of Misrata on top of a vehicle surrounded by a large crowd chanting, "The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain," according to footage aired on Al-Arabiya television. The fighters who killed Gadhafi are believed to have come from Misrata, a city that suffered a brutal weeks-long siege by Gadhafi's forces during the eight-month long civil war. 
 
 Celebratory gunfire and cries of "God is Great" rang out across the capital Tripoli. Cars honked their horns and people hugged each other. In Sirte, the ecstatic former rebels celebrated the city's fall after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the sky, pumping their guns, knives and even a meat cleaver in the air and singing the national anthem. 
 
 The capture of Sirte, the death of Gadhafi, and the death and capture of his two most powerful sons, gives the transitional leaders confidence to declare the entire country "liberated" as they have said they would do. 
 
 It rules out a scenario that some had feared _ that he might flee deeper into Libya's southern deserts and lead a resistance campaign against Libya's rulers. 
 
 Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam told AP that Muatassim Gadhafi was killed in Sirte. The justice minister said Gadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, had been wounded in the leg and was being held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan, northwest of Sirte. 
 
 Sirte's fall caps weeks of heavy, street-by-street battles as revolutionary fighters besieged the city. Despite the fall of Tripoli on Aug. 21, Gadhafi loyalists mounted fierce resistance in several areas, including Sirte, preventing Libya's new leaders from declaring full victory in the eight-month civil war. Earlier this week, revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid. 
 
 By Tuesday, fighters said they had squeezed Gadhafi's forces in Sirte into a residential area of about 700 square yards but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings. 
 
 In an illustration of how heavy the fighting has been, it took the anti-Gadhafi fighters two days to capture a single residential building. 
 
 Reporters watched as the final assault began around 8 a.m. Thursday and ended about 90 minutes later. Just before the battle, about five carloads of Gadhafi loyalists tried to flee the enclave down the coastal highway that leads out of the city. But they were met by gunfire from the revolutionaries, who killed at least 20 of them. 
 
 Col. Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO's operational headquarters in Naples, Italy, said the alliance's aircraft Thursday morning struck two vehicles of pro-Gadhafi forces "which were part of a larger group maneuvering in the vicinity of Sirte." 
 
 The Misrata Military Council, one of the command groups, said its fighters captured Gadhafi. 
 
 One fighter who said he was at the battle told AP Television News that the final fight took place at an opulent compound for visiting dignitaries built by Gadhafi's regime. Adel Busamir said the convoy tried to break out but after being hit it turned back and re-entered the compound. Several hundred fighters assaulted. 
 
 "We found him there," Busamir said. "We saw them beating him (Gadhafi) and someone shot him with a 9mm pistol ... then they took him away." 
 
 Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani in Tripoli told Al-Jazeera TV that a wounded Gadhafi "tried to resist (revolutionary forces) so they took him down." 
 
 "I reassure everyone that this story has ended and this book has closed," he said. 
 
 After the battle, revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for any hiding Gadhafi fighters. At least 16 were captured, along with cases of ammunition and trucks loaded with weapons. Reporters saw revolutionaries beating captured Gadhafi men in the back of trucks and officers intervening to stop them. 
 
 In the central quarter where Thursday's final battle took place, the fighters looking like the same ragtag force that started the uprising eight months ago jumped up and down with joy and flashed V-for-victory signs. Some burned the green Gadhafi flag, then stepped on it with their boots. 
 
 They chanted "God is great" while one fighter climbed a traffic light pole to unfurl the revolution's flag, which he first kissed. Discarded military uniforms of Gadhafi's fighters littered the streets. One revolutionary fighter waved a silver trophy in the air while another held up a box of firecrackers, then set them off. 
 
 "Our forces control the last neighborhood in Sirte," Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya's interim National Transitional Council, told The Associated Press in Tripoli. "The city has been liberated." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel in Tripoli contributed to this report. ||||| WARNING: IMAGES BELOW ARE PARTICULARLY GRAPHIC AND UPSETTING. 
 
 SIRTE, Libya — An analysis of video obtained by GlobalPost from a rebel fighter who recorded the moment when Col. Muammar Gaddafi was first captured confirms that another rebel fighter, whose identity is unknown, sodomized the former leader as he was being dragged from the drainpipe where he had taken cover. 
 
 A frame by frame analysis of this exclusive GlobalPost video clearly shows the rebel trying to insert some kind of stick or knife into Gaddafi's rear end. 
 
 Full coverage: Death of Muammar Gaddafi 
 
 GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton said there is some question as to whether the instrument was a knife from the end of a machine gun, which Libyans call a Bicketti, or some kind of stick. 
 
 This latest video discovery comes as international and human rights groups call for a formal investigation into how the former Libyan leader was killed. In video clips that have emerged of his capture, Gaddafi can be seen injured but alive. Later he is seen with what appears to be gunshot wounds to his head and chest. According to the Geneva Conventions, however, abuse of prisoners under any circumstance is not permissable. 
 
 Related: Gaddafi to be buried in "secret desert location" 
 
 Here is a frame by frame look at the attack. Below the frames is video decoding the cell phone footage of the capture. And, finally, at the bottom is the full video. You can see the attempt to sodomize Gaddafi at the 16 second mark. 
 
 WARNING: Extremely graphic 
 
 DECODING MUAMMAR GADDAFI'S CAPTURE: 
 
 FULL VIDEO OF MUAMMAR GADDAFI'S CAPTURE: ||||| 'Very disturbing' Gadhafi's family, most of whom are in Algeria or other nearby African nations, issued a statement calling for an investigation into how Gadhafi and another of his sons, Muatassim, were killed. In the statement on the pro-Gadhafi, Syria-based TV station Al-Rai, they asked for international pressure on the NTC to hand over the bodies of the two men to their tribe. 
 
 His body was then paraded on a car through Misrata, a nearby city that suffered a brutal siege by regime forces during the eight-month civil war that eventually ousted Gadhafi, as crowds in the streets cheered. 
 
 Other footage showed fighters rolling Gadhafi's lifeless body over on the pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. 
 
 The video on Sky News later shows a dead Gadhafi being photographed and filmed in the street. 
 
 "Shut up, dog," one of the former rebels responded. 
 
 "Do you know right from wrong?" Gadhafi added on the video shortly before he appears to lose consciousness. 
 
 'Shut up, dog' Celebratory gunfire is heard in the video aired by Sky News and at one point a gun is pointed at the dictator's head. 
 
 According to a translation by Britain's Sky News , Gadhafi yelled at the revolutionaries. "What you are doing is not allowed in Islamic law," he reportedly said. "What you are doing is forbidden in Islam!" 
 
 "We want him alive. We want him alive," one man shouted before Gadhafi was dragged off the hood, some fighters pulling his hair, toward an ambulance. 
 
 Fighters propped him on the hood as they drove for several moments, apparently to parade him around in victory. 
 
 Video on Arab television stations showed fighters pushing him onto the hood of a pickup truck. One fighter held him down, pressing on his thigh with a pair of shoes in a show of contempt. 
 
 Gadhafi gestures to the young men to be patient, and says "What's going on?" as he wipes fresh blood from his temple and glances at his palm. A young fighter later is shown carrying a boot and screaming, "This is Moammar's shoe! This is Moammar's shoe! Victory! Victory!" 
 
 New video posted on Facebook showed revolutionary fighters dragging a confused-looking Gadhafi up the hill to their vehicles after his capture and less than an hour before he was killed. The young men scream "Moammar, you dog!" as their former leader wipes at blood covering the left side of his head, neck and left shoulder. 
 
 The bloody siege of Misrata over the summer instilled a particularly virulent hatred of Gadhafi there — a hatred now mixed with pride because he was captured and killed by fighters from the city. 
 
 Gadhafi's 69-year-old body was stripped to the waist, his torso and arms streaked with dried blood. Bullet wounds in the chest, abdomen and left side of the head were visible. 
 
 A grab from a video taken from the mobile phone of a National Transitional Council fighter shows the capture of Moammar Gadhafi in Sirte, Libya, on Thursday. 
 
 "We want to see the dog," some chanted. 
 
 Men, women and children filed in to take their picture with the body. The site's guards had even organized separate visiting hours for families and single men. 
 
 In Misrata, residents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view Gadhafi's body, which was laid out on a mattress on the floor of an emptied-out freezer at a local shopping center. The body had apparently been stowed in the freezer in an attempt to keep it out of the public eye, but once the location was known, that intention was swept away in the overwhelming desire of residents to see the man they so deeply despised. 
 
 Earlier, the top NATO commander, Adm. Jim Stavridis, had said in an announcement on his Facebook page that he would recommend conclusion of the mission. "A good day for NATO, a great day for the people of Libya," Stavridis wrote. 
 
 Meantime, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the alliance had taken a preliminary decision to end its seven-month mission in Libya on Oct. 31. He said the formal decision would come next week. 
 
 Interim government officials moved ahead on plans to "liberate Libya." The liberation was moved from Saturday to Sunday in the city of Benghazi, often referred to as the cradle of the revolution that overthrew Gadhafi, and not in the capital Tripoli, interim government officials told Reuters. 
 
 Also muddled was the fate of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the only Gadhafi son who stayed in Libya and reportedly survived after his father's Aug. 21 ouster. It appeared Friday that he was still at large: Some government ministers had said he was wounded and in custody in a hospital in the city of Zlitan, but a military official at the hospital, Hakim al-Kisher, denied he was there. 
 
 As citizens lined up in Misrata to view the body, the top U.N. rights chief raised concerns that Gadhafi may have been shot to death after being captured. 
 
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 Moammar Gadhafi's blood-streaked body was stashed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center Friday as Libyans tried to figure out where and when to bury the hated leader. 
 
 The United Nations' human rights office also called for a full investigation. 
 
 "It is unclear how he died. There is a need for an investigation," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva. 
 
 "It is a fundamental principle of international law that people accused of serious crimes should if possible be tried. Summary executions are strictly illegal. It is different if someone is killed in combat," he added. 
 
 Referring to separate cell phone images showing a wounded Gadhafi first alive and then later dead amidst a jumble of anti-Gadhafi fighters after his capture on Thursday, he added: "Taken together, they were very disturbing." 
 
 In Tripoli, joy over Gadhafi's end spilled into a second day as thousands converged on central Martyrs' Square for Friday prayers and celebrations. Men danced and hoisted the country's new red-green-and-black flag. 
 
 "It's the start of a new era that everybody hopes will bring security and freedom," said Tarek Othman, a computer specialist. "I hope democracy is the path we take so all of these Libyans who have sacrificed will really feel free." 
 
 He stood with his wife — who wore a cap in the revolution's colors over her all-encompassing black niqab — in the square, which was formerly known as Green Square and was used by Gadhafi to stage rallies against the uprising. 
 
 Khaled Almslaty, a clothing vendor, said he wished Gadhafi had not been killed after being captured. 
 
 "But I believe he got what he deserved because if we prosecuted him for the smallest of his crimes, he would be punished by death," he said. "Now we hope the NTC will accelerate the formation of a new government and ... won't waste time on irrelevant conflicts and competing for authority and positions." 
 
 It's a tall order after nearly 42 years of rule by one man, who often acted according to whims and tolerated no dissent. Libya's new leaders have stressed the need for reconciliation, but many factions are eager to have their say after years of repression. 
 
 The Western-backed NTC, a collection of former rebels, returned exiles, technocrats and Islamists, has always been united behind its goal of ousting Gadhafi. Now the group must overcome divisions and competing self-interests to rebuild the oil-rich North African nation, which was stripped of institutions under Gadhafi. 
 
 The NTC said interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will formally declare liberation on Sunday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the revolution began in mid-February. Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril has promised to resign, saying he will not be part of any new government and will instead turn his attention to fighting corruption. 
 
 The transitional council has asked the United Nations "to play a significant role" in helping them write a constitution, hold elections and build democratic institutions, said Ian Martin, the U.N. envoy to Libya. 
 
 "No one should underestimate in this moment of celebration in Libya how great are the challenges that lie ahead," he said. He also warned of "a major challenge in the future of those of the fighters who don't wish to return to previous civilian occupations." 
 
 Gadhafi was killed when revolutionary fighters overwhelmed him and the last of his loyalists in his coastal hometown Sirte, the last bastion of his regime to be captured after weeks of heavy fighting. 
 
 Authorities have promised to bury Gadhafi in accordance with Islamic traditions calling for quick interment, but Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said the burial was delayed because officials were debating "what the best place is to bury him." 
 
 Mohamed Sayeh, a senior member of the governing National Transitional Council, said that Gadhafi's burial had been delayed until his death can be examined by the International Criminal Court. 
 
 Account of the capture 
 
 According to most accounts from fighters on the ground and their commanders, Gadhafi and his loyalists were in a convoy trying to flee when NATO airstrikes hit two of the vehicles. Then revolutionary forces moved in and clashed with the loyalists for several hours. 
 
 Gadhafi and his bodyguards fled their cars and took refuge in a nearby drainage tunnel, where they were captured. 
 
 Most accounts agree that Gadhafi died from wounds 30 to 40 minutes later as an ambulance took him to Misrata. But accounts differ over how he suffered those wounds. 
 
 Most commanders and fighters at the scene with whom The Associated Press has spoken say that when he was captured, Gadhafi already was fatally wounded. In the videos of his capture, however, he has blood on his head, but none on his chest or abdomen. At one point, his shirt is pulled up to his chest, but no wound is visible. 
 
 Shammam said Gadhafi was wounded after his capture. "It seems like the bullet was a stray and it could have come from the revolutionaries or the loyalists," Shammam said. 
 
 Other fighters, commanders and witnesses have not spoken of any such crossfire or further clashes. Siraq al-Hamali, a 21-year-old fighter, told AP that he rode in the vehicle carrying Gadhafi as it left Sirte. He did not mention coming under fire and said Gadhafi died en route of wounds he already had. 
 
 Even reports of the coroner's conclusions were confused over which wound was fatal — some said it was the shot to the head, others said it was a shot to the liver. 
 
 Muatassim, who had been his father's feared national security adviser, was captured alive separately in Sirte, and how he died also remains unknown. 
 
 In a video aired Friday on Al-Rai, the 34-year-old Muatassim, wearing a bloodied undershirt, sits on a mattress in a room with fighters around him. He takes a swig of water and smokes a cigarette as he argues with at least one man who accused him of robbing the country and abusing its sons. 
 
 The fighter then orders Muatassim to say "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" before the video cuts to a segment with Muatassim lying subdued on the mattress with his forearm on his forehead. He also appears to check for an injury on his collar bone. The last scene is of Muatassim lying dead, apparently in a hospital, with a huge gash in his chest.
– What exactly transpired in Moammar Gadhafi's last moments remains unclear. A video from Al Jazeera shows a badly injured Gadhafi captured alive and being loaded by anti-Gadhafi fighters into an ambulance in Sirte. (The grisly video along with photos are in the gallery.) He was dead soon after: New York Times: "Conflicting accounts quickly emerged about whether (Gadhafi) was executed by his captors, died from gunshot wounds sustained in a firefight, was killed in a NATO bomb blast or bled to death in an ambulance." Reuters: It quotes a source in Libya's National Transitional Council: "They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed. He might have been resisting." Wall Street Journal: "Gadhafi was shot and wounded in Sirte and died in an ambulance en route to Misrata, said Misrata Military Council spokesman Fathi Bashagha." Associated Press: "Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance and examined it, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, to the head and chest."