Gadhafi Burial Delayed

UN to probe death; ICC wants his DNA
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 21, 2011 6:19 AM CDT
Updated Oct 21, 2011 7:46 AM CDT
Moammar Gadhafi Burial Delayed
Libyan National Transitional Council fighters in Sirte celebrate Gadhafi's death.   (Getty Images)

Libya's transitional leadership has abandoned plans to follow Islamic tradition and bury Moammar Gadhafi today. Officials say they are going to delay the dictator's burial until they can investigate the circumstances of his death and decide on where to inter his body, the AP reports. For now, the bodies of Gadhafi and his son Mutassim are being kept in Misrata, where they ended up on display in a private home yesterday.

As Libyans rejoiced, a spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Council panel probing abuses in Libya said the panel would probably investigate Gadhafi's death. "More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of fighting or was executed after his capture," he said. "The two cell phone videos that have emerged, one of him alive, and one of him dead, taken together are very disturbing." At the International Criminal Court, which charged Gadhafi with crimes against humanity earlier this year, judges will need official confirmation—likely a DNA sample—that Gadhafi is dead before they can formally withdraw his indictment. (More Moammar Gadhafi stories.)

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