It was always on the cards that, if he fell into rebel hands, they would summarily execute him. He had become far more than a hate figure, responsible for untold reprehensible actions. Until Tripoli fell to the freedom fighters he had used the might of his arsenal of weapons to try to bomb and gun into submission his own people, calling rats to be exterminated those who had risen against him.

It was always highly probable that, given the chance, someone or more among the rebels would not heed the overriding need for the victorious rebels to show that they would herald in a new Libya with respect, difficult though it would be in the terrible circumstances, to the rule of law. A captured Muammar Gaddafi should have been brought to justice. He was not.

He was captured alive. It is hugely unlikely that he was mortally hit in a crossfire when he was dragged out of the drainage pipe where, ironically, he had hidden to try to save his guilty skin. He was dragged, beaten, kicked and then shot. A young rebel has been boasting on television that he did it.

Most of Libya does not care. What counts is that the tyrant is dead. Nor do most care that Col Gaddafi’s body was and continued to be abused against the edicts of Islam. He was not a true Muslim, anyway, why should we care, they say. Even those more experienced then the man or men who killed Col Gaddafi in cold blood, and similarly his son Mutassim, said flatly they would have done it themselves had they been there.

Humanly understandable though the deed was, it was not a good start. It was not made better by the way the West’s leading leaders greeted the news. They ignored the gruesome pictures of Col Gaddafi in the hands of a lynch mob and his bloody death to crow that Libya had been liberated. Not a single one of them slipped in the thought that it would have been better had he been subjected to due process. It was left to others to express concern at the legality of the killings of the hated despot and his son and to demand a proper investigation.

What happens now? Everyone, not least Malta, hopes that the new Libya will gradually become a functioning democracy. At the heart of that hope lies the need for a representative government that will be accepted as a reflection of majority rule while those who govern will be wise enough to rule in a manner appropriate to the social and political physiognomy of Libya.

That it will be far from easy is demonstrated by the experience of the young National Transitional Council. It is meant to represent the main strands of Libyan society. Yet, informed reports tell of splits between east and west, Benghazi and Tripoli, the mountains and cities, the Berbers and Arabs, the secular and the religious and – as the Guardian newspaper put it – between Misurata and everyone else. The fighters from each group answer to their faction not to the idea of the Libyan nation.

There is also the problem of the proliferation of weapons in the hands of those who became the soldiers of the 2011 revolution. Most of them were not part of anything resembling a unified army. They will not give up their weapons easily. The division among them poses the first threat to the primary objective of unity.

The NTC has the right objectives, including an election within eight months to be followed, perhaps years later, by the election of a President. But these objectives have to be achieved in a country not used to elections, to the basic institutions of democracy. Neither may democracy be the widespread agenda. The militias will demand rewards for their role in the overthrow of Col Gaddafi, such as a share in Libyan wealth and power.

Foreign interests, including vultures, will swoop in from abroad. They were doing that when Col Gaddafi was rehabilitated. Now it will be worse. China too is said to be already seeking contracts from the new government and access to Libyan mineral resources.

Then there are those within Libya who genuinely or because they were misled for so long will see Col Gaddafi as an icon and the manner of his death a terrible motivation to terrorism.

It is yet too early to predict what the new Libya will be like.