No post-mortem for Gaddafi: Misrata commanders

Misrata, Oct 22: Military commanders in the Libyan city of Misrata said on Saturday that no post-mortem would be carried out on the body of Muammar Gaddafi despite concerns over how the ousted strongman died.

"There will be no post-mortem today, nor any day," Misrata military council spokesman Fathi al-Bashaagha told the media. "No one is going to open up his body."

His comments were confirmed by two other Misrata military commanders.

Bashaagha said that the new regime's military commander for the capital, Abdelhakim Belhaj, was expected to travel to Misrata later on Saturday to view the corpse of the man who ruled Libya with an iron rod for 42 years.

But he said there were no immediate plan for National Transitional Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil to visit.

"Abdel Jajil did not come yesterday and is not coming today, and for the moment it is not expected that he will come."

Gaddafi's body has been stored in a freezer in a Misrata vegetable market since it was brought to the city on Thursday following his death in still unexplained circumstances during the fall of his hometown Sirte.

Abdel Jalil, meanwhile, told reporters in Benghazi that Gaddafi's death was being investigated without any reference to a post-mortem examination.

"Yes," he answered when asked if the case was being investigated. He declined to take any further questions during a visit to injured fighters in a hospital.

Overnight, the body of Gaddafi's son and national security chief Mutassim, who also died during the fall of Sirte, was brought to the same makeshift mortuary and laid out beside him.

Dozens of curious Misrata residents queued on Saturday morning to view the two bloodied bodies laid out on mattresses on the floor.

The city suffered a devastating five-month siege by pro-Gaddafi forces, which proved a turning point in the uprising launched in Benghazi in February.

AFP