libya is free today becous gaddafi death

libya is happy today becous Colonel Gaddafi has been captured in the fall of Sirte, according to the Libyan National Transitional Council. Libyans are celebrating on the streets of Tripoli, but Reuters hints that the Colonel may in fact have already died. Here's their tweet

  Gaddafi's death are true (and they may not be: the US cannot even confirm his capture yet), it will make some things easier between the Libyans and their Western allies. It solves the problem of where he will be tried, and by whom. If he is still alive, we have months of wrangling and undignified negotiation yet to come, and – notwithstanding the assurances above – the prospect of a Saddam Hussein-style show trial. On the other hand, if he is alive we also stand a greater chance of finally establishing the truth about Lockerbie, the killing of WPc Yvonne Fletcher and many other crimes. Either way, the end of this man's brutal dictatorship has arrived, and not before time.

Libyans exploded in excitement on Thursday afternoon at reports that Muammar Gaddafi had been captured in his home town of Sirt, where rebels have fought a grueling battle for weeks to crush his remaining armed loyalists.

As television broke on news that Sirt had finally fallen to the rebel forces, gunfire begun resounding around the capital. About 20 minutes later came the news, from a rebel commander in Sirt, that Gaddafi had been captured hiding in a hole in the coastal city, Gaddafi's home town about 230 miles east along the Mediterranean. In this city of two million people, thousands of people poured into the streets, firing guns in the air. The ships in Tripoli harbor blared their horns for more than an hour, and the mosques played prayers praising Allah, over the deafening noise of car horns. Crowds of people converged on the seafront to move towards Martyrs Square in the heart of the capital, where only two months ago, Gaddafi's supporters held continual demonstrations in support of the dictatorship.
(See pictures of the fight for Gaddafi's hometown.)

By 2 p.m. Tripoli time, there was no authoritative confirmation of Gaddafi's capture or death. Indeed, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council (NTC), the interim government of Libya, insisted that the Colonel was dead, that they would have preferred him alive and brought to trial but that one "cannot go against God's will." The NTC has been notoriously inaccurate in the past about the capture and death of Gaddafi kin. Nevertheless, if Gaddafi has indeed been run to ground, Oct. 20 will be one of the most historic moments of Libya's history, the final demise of a 42-year dictator who transformed this oil-rich nation into a terrifying authoritarian state even as he modernized what had been a largely illiterate desert country into a regional economic force.

Exactly two months have passed since rebel forces stormed Tripoli and drove Gaddafi and his family from power. Yet while the rebels' NTC quickly assumed control over the capital, Gaddafi and his hugely powerful son Saif al-Islam vanished, slipping out of the city while Tripoli was still in turmoil. The International Criminal Court has indicted both men for crimes against humanity, for allegedly ordering the killing of unarmed civilians before the rebel force took up arms in mid-February.