Libyan Militia Leader Says Ready to Reveal Location of Gaddafi’s Grave

 Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli March 8, 2011. REUTERS/Huseyin Dogan
Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli March 8, 2011. REUTERS/Huseyin Dogan
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Libyan Militia Leader Says Ready to Reveal Location of Gaddafi’s Grave

 Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli March 8, 2011. REUTERS/Huseyin Dogan
Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli March 8, 2011. REUTERS/Huseyin Dogan

A militia leader in the city of Misurata raised the issue of the location of the grave of the late Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, who was buried there nearly 10 years ago after his arrest and killing.

Salah Badi, the commander of the so-called ‘Al-Samoud Brigade’, one of the participants in the burial of Gaddafi and his son Mutassim, said that he was ready to reveal the place where Gaddafi’s body was buried after his death on Oct. 20, 2011, after a bloody battle in the city of Sirte.

UN-sanctioned Salah Badi, whose forces played a key role in preventing the National Army from entering Tripoli two years ago, was speaking in an interview via Clubhouse about the Feb. 18 revolution, which broke out in 2011, and the following events that led to the overthrow of the regime.

Despite the passing of 10 years since the killing of Gaddafi, some Libyan cities, especially in the south, still express their grief at his loss. His supporters demand to know the location of the grave in which he was buried along with his son, Al-Mutasim Billah, according to a legal case which was previously brought by Libyan lawyer Adnan Argaa Al-Urfi before the Benghazi Court of First Instance.

Supporters of the former regime seemed to disregard Badi’s statements, but one of the Gadhadhfa tribe sheikhs demanded, in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, that he should be tried internationally for his crimes, adding that Gaddafi’s burial place must be revealed.

Gaddafi and his son were killed in the city of Sirte. However, people from Misurata took their bodies to their city, before burying them in an unknown location. Since then, supporters of the former regime have launched lawsuits to reveal the burial place, without reaching any concrete response to their quest.



UN Rights Chief ‘Gravely Concerned’ by Lebanon Escalation

Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
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UN Rights Chief ‘Gravely Concerned’ by Lebanon Escalation

Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)

The UN rights chief on Tuesday voiced concern about the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon, where his office said nearly 100 people had been reported killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent days, including women, children and medics.

Israel has been locked in fighting with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah since Oct. 2023, and fighting has escalated dramatically since late September of this year.

"UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk is gravely concerned by the escalation in Lebanon with at least 97 people reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes between the 22nd and 24th of November," Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, told a Geneva press briefing.

He said that at least seven paramedics had been reported killed in three Israeli strikes in the south of Lebanon on Nov. 22-23, adding to 226 healthcare worker deaths since Oct. 7, 2023. He did not specify how many of the recent deaths had been verified by UN human rights monitors.

Israel says it targets military capabilities in Lebanon and Gaza and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses Hezbollah, like Hamas, of hiding among civilians, which they deny.