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Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mo'tassim were buried in a secret desert location on Tuesday, five days after the deposed Libyan leader was captured, killed and put on grisly public display.
"He (Gaddafi) has just been buried now in the desert along with his son," National Transitional Council commander, Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters on the telephone.
Gaddafi's cleric, Khaled Tantoush, who was captured with him, prayed over the rotting bodies before they were taken from the compound in the coastal city of Misrata, where they had been on show, and handed to two NTC loyalists for burial, he said.
The NTC had worried many outsiders by displaying the corpses in a meat locker in the fiercely anti-Gaddafi city of Misrata until their decaying state forced them on Monday to call a halt.
Under pressure from Western allies, the NTC promised the same day to investigate how Gaddafi and his son were killed. Mobile phone footage showed both were alive after their capture. The former leader was seen being mocked, beaten and abused before he died, in what NTC officials say was crossfire.
The saga has made Western allies of Libya's interim leadership queasy about the prospects for the rule of law and stable government in the post-Gaddafi era.
"I laughed when I saw him being beaten as he deserved to be. And I laugh again now that I know he is in the ground," said Emani Zaid, 20, a student in Tripoli.
"If the men who buried him are true free Libyans, they can keep the secret (of his grave)."
Determined to prevent Gaddafi's grave from becoming a shrine for his supporters, the NTC wants to keep its location secret, refusing custody to his tribe, many of whom live in Sirte.
Punch