Libya: The Truth About Gaddafi’s Death  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
For 42 years, Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya with an iron first. Over the years, he crushed opposition, obliterated dissent at home and ruled from Tripoli as the uncontested King of Kings of Africa.
On February 16, 2011, Libyans started revolting against his dictatorship. Two months ago, the capital Tripoli was freed, and today, Libya breaks out in celebration as Gaddafi's stronghold Sirte falls and the man himself is either captured and killed or killed and captured. The circumstances surrounding his death are still dubious, the details contradictory and the information sketchy.
On Twitter, journalists and pundits try to reconstruct his death circumstances.
Free Misrata posts this video on YouTube, showing a living Gaddafi, surrounded by many excited freedom fighters:
Al Jazeera's Evan Hill asks:
@evanchill: So if NTC fighters killed Gaddafi after capturing him alive, what is your reaction?
And also questions Gaddafi's injuries later paraded on our television screens:
@evanchill: The Gaddafi head wound may have been blunt trauma from getting struck, and not a gunshot. Very hard to tell.
Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell also has a lot of questions. Here, he asks:
@blakehounshell: Execution? RT @halibrahim: A better image of #Gadhafi's body which shows the bullet in his head #Libya
And then explains:
@blakehounshell: That new video I just posted clearly shows an ambulance nearby; doesn't show execution if there was one
And he asks again:
@blakehounshell: So, is there any footage out there of Qaddafi being shot in the head?
CNN's Hala Gorani also has questions, among them:
@HalaGorani: Was Gaddafi captured wounded and alive and then executed or did he die of his wounds? Unclear based on videos we've seen so far. #Libya
On Twitter, many have also reacted to parading Gaddafi's dead body across television screens.
iRevolt or Roqayah notes:
@iRevolt: It's one thing to feel elated at the ousting, removal, etc. of a dictator; turning death into a corpse-whoring party is another.
And Egyptian Mosa'ab Elshamy comments:
@mosaaberizing: Idealistic people, especially Arabs, who can't bear to see the corpse of one of the region's most despised tyrants, snap the **** out of it.
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.