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| Africa North |
| Doubt cast on Gaddafi son death claim |
| 2011-05-02 |
| [Al Jazeera] Libyan state television has shown what it called footage of the body of Muammar Qadaffy's son who was allegedly killed in a NATO air raid. Moussa Ibrahim, the Libyan government front man, said on Sunday the Libyan leader and his wife were in the house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Qadaffy, in Tripoli when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a NATO fighter jet late on Saturday. Al-Arab's compound in the city's Garghour neighbourhood was attacked "with full power" in a "direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country", Ibrahim said, calling the strike a violation of international law. "What we have now is the law of the jungle," he said. "We think now it is clear to everyone that what is happening in Libya has nothing to do with the protection of civilians." Ibrahim had earlier taken journalists to the remnants of a house in Tripoli, which Libyan officials said had been hit by at least three missiles. It appeared unlikely anyone inside could have survived. Rifle fire and car horns rang out in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in Libya's east, as news of the attack spread. Cars whizzed by the sea-front beeping their horns and shouting "God is greatest" as the night sky was lit up by red tracer fire. But opposition fighters who control the region said they could not trust Qadaffy. Lot of suggestions Al Jizz's Sue Turton, reporting from Benghazi on Sunday, said there were "an awful lot" of suggestions in Libya that the news of the deaths could be fabricated. "One of the main spokesmen for the Transitional National Council, Abdul Hafez Goga, is saying he thinks it could all be fabrication, that it may well be Qadaffy is trying to garner some sympathy," she said. "Back in 1986, Qadaffy once claimed that Ronald Reagan, then US president, had launched a strike on his compound in Tripoli and killed his daughter. "Many journalists since then dug around and found out that the actual child that had died had nothing to do with Qadaffy, that he sort of adopted her posthumously." Saif al-Arab Qadaffy is the most unknown of the Libyan leader's children, Al Jizz's Anita McNaught, reporting from the Tunisia-Libya border, said. "He's one of the low-profile of his children and has been largely invisible since the conflict began," she said. "He hasn't been visible in any significant form. He hasn't appeared on TV or made any speeches, he hasn't been on any crowd-rallying marches." |
| Posted by:Fred |