What is it with mad dictators and holes in the ground?
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was discovered in an “underground shelter” by American special forces. Now Libya’s Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi has turned up in a similar subterranean scrape.
Saddam famously announced to his discoverers that he was the president of Iraq and "willing to negotiate". Gaddafi’s words upon discovery - “Don’t shoot!” - seem to have been even less effective as he has ended up dead. (As Saddam found, being a “friend of the West” while ruling an oil-rich nation is not often different from being an “enemy of the West”.)
It’s all very confused, but reports suggest he may have died at the hands of the man who found him and was later photographed waving around Gaddafi’s gold-plated pistol. (A golden gun - Mo was certainly working that Bond villain rep hard.) Other reports suggest he was part of a convoy that was hit by NATO airstrikes.
A spokesman for the National Transitional Council (which despite its name has nothing to do with the digital broadcasting switchover) said the colonel had “been killed at the hands of the revolution”. That's a lot of hands. Perhaps they used a "take a number" system.
It's tempting to indulge in tabloid rejoicing that "mad dog" Gaddafi has gone the same way as Osama Bed Linen and Saddam Insein. But the sad fact is that the former Libyan ruler will not now be available to answer the many difficult questions surrounding his regime, especially those pertaining to the Lockerbie bombing, the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, his involvement in terrorism and, oh yes, that famous friendship with the West.
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