An uncomplicated killing?

“That man is a hero – whoever he is”, said the man from the National Transitional Council. “There is no question of prosecuting anyone even if it was a deliberate assassination”, said his colleague. The two men were explaining how Libya is answering the call to explain what happened to Colonel Gaddafi as best it can.An investigation is to be done, a report to be written. But the point, they explained, is simply to tell the Libyan people what happened not to hold anyone to account. Even these officials did not seem to believe the Prime Minister’s early claim that Gaddafi had been caught in crossfire. The pictures showing him alive, his dragging through the street and then the bullet wounds to the head all suggest the obvious – and knew it. So it seems unlikely the person who put that hole in the head will be named officially – and if he is nobody in the NTC will question why he did it.

The celebratory gunfire, the crowds,the fireworks over Green Square, the cars tooting their horns and graffiti going up around town all say the same thing. No matter how much they intended to see through “due process”, put the man on trial and make him account for his actions his death is a much simpler thing to deal with. It will let Libya move on more quickly, there will be no dragging out of a trial, no wrangling over where it should be held and under what legal system. It is not, they suggest, that Gaddafi’s continued life would have been a threat to Libya – just a drag.

If there are questions about the morality of killing – even a man so widely regarded as a cruel and exploitative tyrant – they will it seems have to wait for private moments. There still seems to be a sense of disbelief and shock, rather than internal conflict. And if your family members had disappeared, or been arrested, or beaten or if you had lived in fear who is to say what you would have done in the same moment, a gun at hand? Officially, and with wide public support it seems, it is a time to rejoice in a very public tyrannicide.