GOVERNMENTS and institutions in every region of the world, committed to the rule of law, would welcome the calls from the United Nations and two leading international human rights organizations for a thorough, independent investigation into the circumstances of last Thursday’s death of the Libyan President, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.
When powerful nations like the USA,The United Kingdom and France succeeded in securing, by majority vote last March, a ‘no-fly  zone’ resolution from the UN Security Council, the pledge was to “protect civilians” in Libya and  not to achieve “regime change” in Tripoli.
That assured distinction was to be openly mocked by the military might of the very western nations that chose to be part of the NATO bombing raids on Libya that killed and injured thousands, and destroyed major infrastructures, including the home and office compounds of Colonel Gadhafi.
Worse, as NATO’s war on Libya intensified, it was simply difficult to maintain the official pretence that “regime change” in Tripoli was not indeed the name of the game, even when it deteriorated to a case of taking out Gadhafi — dead or alive.
Well, in the end, after some seven months of NATO air strikes to strengthen the foreign-organised and funded anti-Gadhafi rebel forces on the ground, the Libyan leader was on Thursday shown to the world in two quickly changing images — the first, blood-soaked and trembling, and then as a corpse, reportedly after being shot in the head by his captors.
That turned out to be the beginning of conflicting reports to emerge about the circumstances of the death of the Libyan leader. Much decried as a brutal dictator during 42 years of absolute power, Gadhafi was, ironically, secretly and, on a few rare occasions, openly embraced by leading British and American politicians.
Their intelligence services were also encouraged to collaborate with the regime in Tripoli in the capture and subsequent torture of political opponents of the Libyan leader. With the escalation of the NATO bombings, and increasing flows of arms to the rebels from France, Britain and The USA, Gadhafi was forced to flee from his bombed complex in Tripoli. Eventually, he was captured in his hometown of Sirte, amid fierce battles with many being killed and wounded on both sides — the anti-Gadhafi forces and the defenders of the Libyan leader and government.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), in announcing the call for an independent probe into the circumstances of Gadhafi’s death, has told the international media:
“There seems to be four or five different versions of how he died. More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in the fighting, or after his capture…”
Separately, two well known human rights bodies, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have pointed to contradictory claims about Gadhafi’s death, and are now integrally involved in arrangements to ensure independent investigations into the precise circumstances.
People the world over who believe in the rule of law, and not justice of the jungle, would be waiting for the outcome, as are the family members of the slain Libyan leader. The fact that his enemies at home and abroad considered him a horrible despot as ruler of Libya should not be rationalised to justify what bears the fingerprints of a brutal case of execution.