CELEBRATIONS:MISRATA – They had the ultimate trophies of the revolution: the colonel's golden gun, his satellite phone, his brown scarf and one black boot.
A small group of fighters from Misurata, the vanguard of the force attacking Muammar Gadafy’s former home town and final hideout Sirte, said they had stumbled upon him hiding in a drainage pipe. He was bleeding from his head and chest, but he was well enough to speak, with his trademark indignation.
“When he saw us, he said, ‘What’s happening?’,” said Omran Shaaban, a 21-year-old Misurata fighter who said he and a friend were the first men in their unit to find Gadafy.
On Thursday night, Shaaban, a student, and his colleagues celebrated their victory in the local council meeting room, hugging one another and passing around the colonel’s prized last possessions. It was a windfall of spoils for the young men, who have lived only half as long as Gadafy ruled Libya, and for Misurata, the Mediterranean port city that is their home.
Misurata suffered grievously under a long siege by Gadafy’s troops in the spring. It responded with rage, sending out its battle- hardened fighters, first to capture Tripoli and, on Thursday, Sirte.
As the bodies of Gadafy and his son Muatassim were displayed for onlookers here in private homes, it struck many Misuratans as a fitting end, providing a measure of a comfort to a brutalised city – and a bargaining chip for its place in a post-Gadafy Libyan government.
“Misurata will sleep very happily tonight,” said Suleiman Fortia, a member of the National Transitional Council from the city.
Gadafy’s body was shuttled around Misurata on Thursday, moved from place to place every time the crowds gathering to see it grew too large. By late evening the body had come to rest in the reception room of a pink villa. Scuffles broke out at the door as local military leaders came to take a look and snap pictures.
Gadafy's body had brown pyjama pants on and nothing else. He had what appeared to be a small wound just below his chest and a gunshot wound to his left temple. His face was clean but his arms were caked with blood. Several visitors tugged at his signature locks. – ( New York Timesservice)