Libya: Gaddafi Will Requests Sirte Burial and Calls on Followers to Fight on
By Staff Writer
SIRTE---Five days after the capture and death of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's new leaders have delayed his burial until the circumstances of his death can be further examined and a decision is made about where to bury the body, Libyan officials said Friday, as the U.N. human rights office called for an investigation into his death.
There is deepening confusion over what to do with Gaddafi's body with the emergence of a will appearing to indicate that the dictator's final wish was to be buried in Sirte.
The will apparently written by Gaddafi surfaced on his Seven Day News website expressing the wish that he be buried in Sirte, the town of his birth, next to "my family and relatives". This came as Libya's new leaders declared the country's freedom from the former dictator's 42-year rule.
In his testament, Gaddafi urges supporters to go on resisting. He alludes to choosing to fight and die inside Libya rather than picking the easier but, in his view, dishonourable route of exile abroad – from where, he implies, he would receive "many offers" of support.
The document, in English translation, says: "This is my will. I, Muammar bin Mohammad bin Abdussalam bi Humayd bin Abu Manyar bin Humayd bin Nayil al Fuhsi Gaddafi, do swear that there is no other God but Allah and that Mohammad is God's Prophet, peace be upon him. I pledge that I will die as Muslim.
"Should I be killed, I would like to be buried, according to Muslim rituals, in the clothes I was wearing at the time of my death and my body unwashed, in the cemetery of Sirte, next to my family and relatives.
"I would like that my family, especially women and children, be treated well after my death. The Libyan people should protect its identity, achievements, history and the honourable image of its ancestors and heroes.
"The Libyan people should not relinquish the sacrifices of the free and best people. I call on my supporters to continue the resistance, and fight any foreign aggressor against Libya, today, tomorrow and always.
"Let the free people of the world know that we could have bargained over and sold out our cause in return for a personal secure and stable life.
"We received many offers to this effect but we chose to be at the vanguard of the confrontation as a badge of duty and honour.
"Even if we do not win immediately, we will give a lesson to future generations, that choosing to protect the nation is an honour and selling it out is the greatest betrayal that history will remember forever, despite the attempts of the others to tell you otherwise."
On Sunday night hundreds of Libyans were still queuing up to view Gaddafi's corpse, which has been kept since last week in cold storage in Misrata. Local transitional council representatives have refused to allow his burial in their town.
In Benghazi, the city where the anti-Gaddafi uprising began, an official said the interim government planned to declare to the whole world that we have liberated our beloved country, with its cities, villages, hilltops, mountains, deserts and skies.
The transitional leadership had said it would bury the dictator Friday in accordance with Islamic tradition. Bloody images of Gadhafi's last moments in the hands of angry captors have raised questions over his treatment minutes before his death. One son, Muatassim, was also killed but the fate of Gadhafi's one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam was unclear.
The Thursday's death of Gadhafi, two months after he was driven from power and into hiding, decisively buries the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.