Libya’s leaders were under pressure yesterday to proclaim the country’s liberation and move towards democracy, amid euphoria over the killing of despot Muammar Gaddafi under still murky circumstances.

With suggestions, including from Russia, that the deposed dictator may have been summarily executed after his capture on Thursday, Russia, the UN human rights chief and Amnesty International called for an investigation.

For its part, the United States called on the National Transitional Council to provide a “transparent account” of Col Gaddafi’s death.

The NTC, Libya’s new rulers, had been expected to issue a promised declaration that the country was finally freed following the death of Col Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and other top regime figures, and the fall of his hometown Sirte.

That would be followed by the formation of an interim government to oversee drawing up a new constitution and holding free elections after four decades of dictatorship.

But with another Gaddafi son – longtime heir-apparent Seif al-Islam – still unaccounted for, NTC leaders waited, despite jubilation in towns across the country at the news that the once all-powerful tyrant was dead.

In fact Libya’s interim premier Mahmud Jibril said late yesterday that the capture of Muammar Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam and his former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi was a priority for the government.

Mr Jibril was visiting the coastal city of Misurata, Libya’s third-largest city, which Col Gaddafi’s forces devastated in a protracted siege, and where the former despot’s body was taken after he was killed on Thursday.

“We still have two steps – (the capture of) Seif and Sanussi,” he added, when asked what was next on the government’s agenda, post-Gaddafi.

Seif al-Islam and Mr Sanussi were indicted by the International Criminal Court in May, along with Col Gaddafi, for their part in the brutal suppression of Libya’s pro-democracy uprising.

The fate of Col Gaddafi’s son and longtime heir-apparent remains unknown, with Mr Jibril on Thursday mentioning unconfirmed reports that the forces of the new regime had attacked an armed convoy in which he was travelling near Sirte.

Yesterday, Col Gaddafi’s body was being held in a refrigerated chamber outside Misurata, an AFP correspondent reported, with the authorities wanting to run DNA tests before the burial.

NTC leaders were cagey about plans for that, not wishing to see the grave become a rallying point for residual loyalists.

Speaking later yesterday, members of the military council in Misurata repeated earlier proposals that Col Gaddafi would be buried in a secret location, but insisted that no decision had yet been taken on that.

Question marks remained over how Col Gaddafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding, with several videos showing him still alive at that point.

Footage showed the former dictator, his face half-covered in blood, being dragged towards a vehicle by a delirious crowd and forced onto the bonnet.

Those at the front, pushed and shook him, pulled him by the hair and hit him, with him appearing at one point as if he were trying to speak out.

Subsequent footage showed him being hauled off the vehicle, still very much alive, and hustled through the screaming crowd, before sight of him was lost in the crush, and the crackle of gunfire was heard.

NTC leaders are adamant he was shot in the head when he was caught “in crossfire” between his supporters and new regime fighters soon after his capture.

“There have been rumours flying around since the killing of Gaddafi, after images were released, claiming that our revolutionaries slaughtered him,” a senior NTC official said.

“No instructions were given to kill Gaddafi, and we do not believe our revolutionaries intentionally killed him.”

But in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the “way his death happened poses an entire number of questions,” and called for a probe.

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