A price on his head
Published:
August 24, 2011 at 6:12pm
Reuters reports that Libya’s rebel council has said it will offer immunity from prosecution for their past crimes (an amnesty) to anyone who is with Gaddafi in hiding and who kills him or hands him in.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil has said that an unnamed Benghazi businessman has put up a reward of two million Libyan dinars ($1.3 million) for Gaddafi’s capture or assassination, over and above this.
Jalil has said already that Gaddafi will be tried in Libya and not sent to the Hague.
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Fingers crossed. Kill the bastard.
No. Bring him to justice the civilised way.
I reckon I’d better explain myself. Here’s my take on this.
I am opposed to capital punishment, so my hope that Gaddafi will be killed as soon as possible might sound weird.
However, the longer Gaddafi stays alive, the more likely hundreds of innocent people will be killed.
If there is a magical way that Gaddafi would be arrested in a few seconds, I would wish him to stand trial for crimes against humanity. However, that seems unlikely. A bullet in the head of the terrorist scum actually saves lives.
I was a pacifist once…then I grew up.
For once I agree with La Redoute. Must be one of her (his, its) best days.
Many in the PL must be hoping that the rebels kill Gaddafi and shut him up for good. Only if he’s alive can he tell us about his special relationship with Mintoff and the MLP.
AFTER giving him a fair trail, I hope. Otherwise what would be the difference between the council and the old regime?
No I don’t agree. He should be brought before the courts. We might get some answers to many questions, maybe even some names.
That would be his revenge on those he thought were his friends, of course when he was still at the top.
Don’t worry there would be plenty of killings, to please your appetite.
What we have and are witnessing is civil war in that country. The new representative council will need much foresight to bring cohesion. Spilling more blood doesn’t augur well.
However you look at it, finally, the target is oil. Gaddafi will be dead and buried, but oil remains. Emerging new empires are thirsty for it, and probably already joining in the race for spoils.
The scenario I am imagining is finally, a checkered Libya again that is not very positive.
I am not seeing Libya as an isolated problem but one of the many encompassing North Africa. However the idea spearheaded by the Egypt uprisings is a clear message they want a change but don’t expect a form of soft-colonialism.
On a humanitarian note, Libyan people don’t deserve what they had to undergo in their history and one has to go before the Gaddafis for that. They are basically good family-loving Muslims.
This is daft. The easy way to get oil contracts is to be friendly with Gaddafi.
This is what Russia, China and western countries have been doing.
War carries a lot of risk, and Western companies already have contracts.
There are other reasons why the west does not want Gaddafi – his past funding of terrorism throughout Europe and the world, and the real possibility that Libya would become a country like Somalia on the southern border of Europe.
“What we have and are witnessing is civil war in that country”.
That would be true if Gaddafi’s was a legitimate government. Gaddafi is a dictator, ruling through fear. What we have and are witnessing is not a civil war. It is an uprising. Don’t insult Libyans by calling it a civil war.
That’s why the consultant was so distracted, he’s trying to source his capital.
Quite the quandary – What would people really prefer, a trial? Or simple visual evidence of the brother leader with a bullet through his head?
Thr prospect of being tried in Libya is pretty grim, mind you. It spurs memories and mental images of Saddam at the end of a rope just a few years back.
I expect nothing less than a brief “trial” followed by a staged execution of the entire family. The “civilised west” is so good at manufacturing evidence and the sheep citizens lap it all up. Actually, considering the “evidence” and the probably strength of the defence, it’ll be more likely that he’ll be “shot whilst attempting to escape”.
Question will be if the rebels will hand over al-Megrahi to the that bloodthirsty ignorant rabble. You know, the ones who imprison without trial, employ torture and execute without trial…”the land of the free” yeah, right.
Oh sure. Gaddafi was so squeaky clean, the “west” will need to manufacture evidence.
What a load of terrorist dictator-enabling crap.
Maybe Joe Sammut could up the reward with Gaddafi’s stash.
No person should be killed, whether he is called Kenneth Cassar or Muammar Gaddafi, whether he is a bastard or not.
Not even if, while the terrorist is still alive, he goes on killing innocent people?
Killing him is too good for him. Put him in stocks for public pillorying in Martyrs’ Square for a day and then dump him in a damp cellar for the rest of his life in a prison cell in Benghazi.
RAI reports that Italian journalists have just been taken hostage by criminals who handed them over to Gaddafi loyalists. This comes within a few hours of the release of the foreigners that were held captive for these last few days at the Rixos hotel .
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110824/local/sliema-bridge-falling-apart-council.381667
Xi tridna nghidulek Cyrus?
PROP, I mean, KEEP IT UP hux?
Killing him would be the easiest way out for the bugger.
He deserves a very difficult life without the very basic needs.
In the meantime, he’s killing people as we speak.
He lived by the sword, let him die by the sword of a fellow citizen long oppressed by the madman.
Hello Daphne, it is hard to enjoy the money gained through hard work, and it is harder to enjoy stolen money. You are a great journalist. God bless and take care.
Dan in-negozzjant minn Benghazi li offra is-somma?
Hsibtu minn Hal Qormi.
In the interest of justice this man must be hanged like Saddam.
I hope Dr. Jalil will ask the MLP to return illegally gotten Libyan money..
Go on Karm, tell us where he’s hiding!
With all due respect to all contributors on this magnificent blog, I would like to submit that with all his wrong-doing and all the atrocities attributed to him and his regime, I still say that as a human being he should be treates as such.
Let him face legitimate justice – kill the bastard and such-like remarks are not at all civilized. I know that I face a barrage of remarks, but that’s it – this is my firm opinion that ALL human beings (and animals of course) should be treated with dignity.
A bullet in the chest is the most dignified way to die. What’s the alternative? Death through old age in a prison cell? That’s dignified?
Who says it’ll be a bullet through the chest rather than death by a thousand cuts?
Then so be it. I consider violence and killing to be the right and just way of doing politics in particular circumstances. This is one of them.
Are you feeling fine? First you say you want a dignified death for Gaddafi, then you say he deserves a violent one.
If a violent death affords him dignity, then that’s all the more reason for having him face trial.
On another subject: I mean no disrespect to the memory of Guido Demarco, but can someone please tell the people promoting his autobiography that we have had more than enough adverts on timesonline.
The adverts have been on for weeks and I am now getting tired seeing the honourable late gentleman glaring back at me every time I wish to read the online newspaper.
Excessive and repetitive advertising is counterproductive as it gets to a point where people get annoyed.
mc You’re right, enough of that book “The Politics of Compromise”.
Good thing you gave him a little extra exposure here then :)
Why don’t we ask Joseph? He’s a very prudent and progressive person.
Oh sorry, we’d have to find him first.
Here’s a question:
What if there was a terrorist heavily armed with machine-guns, and with hundreds of innocent people held captive. Suppose the terrorist informs us that in a few hours he will kill all the people, and if somebody approaches him, he will kill them immediately.
What would you do:
a) Give him a clean shot in the head if you have the chance?
or
b) Wait for him to kill all those people, and then make him stand trial for murder?
I would choose “a”, without any hesitation.
A clean shot to the hands would be more effective. You get the result of a without compromising b.
The mouth will still function after a shot in the hands. I’m sure you don’t believe Gaddafi is actually killing the people himself. He is ordering his men to kill people.
I do not think that the rebels should kill Gaddafi much as he deserves it.
Gaddafi should be given a fair trial and left to rot in a jail for the rest of his life.
Making him a martyr will solve no problem, au contraire, his followers will harbour hatred and revenge.
What I hope, and hopefully this is not a dream, is that the Libyans will rise to the occasion and prove that they have at heart true democracy, but that does not come about in a matter of months. One has to really work for it. Accepting opposition, having free elections is what Libyans need now.
I suppose you’re one of those who think Ceaucescu, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden became “martyrs”. I think not.
When they died, their cause died with them.
Pundits would wring their hands and tell us of the waves of terrorst bombings that would follow Bin Laden’s death.
Well, here we are and where are they? Pushing up the daisies, and in Bin Laden’s case, feeding the fishes.
Then you have dictators who end their life peacefully in a retirement home, but that’s another story.
Let me put it another way. On one side you’ve got people uprising for freedom and democracy. On the other side you’ve got a terrorist dictator killing people so that he stays in power.
There is a chance that the terrorist dictator is captured alive, but this will definitely prolong the conflict. In the meantime, decent people are dying.
Now here’s the question. If you had the chance to kill Gaddafi and hasten the end of the war (meaning less people will die), how many people killed by Gaddafi would it take for you to pull the trigger? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?
I wouldn’t even wait for one. I would immediately kill the bastard.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/08/2011825124849190250.html
Now tell me you still wouldn’t shoot Gaddafi if you had the chance.
Sadly, that’s nothing new. More and worse has been done before, and that’s why allowing him the easy way out is wrong.
Libyan writer Hisham Matar explains why better than I can in an article called “Justice satisfies a deeper desire than revenge”. Matar’s father, Jaballa, has been missing for several years, so his is not simply a hanut tat-te opinion.
If you subscribe to the UK Times, you can read his article here:www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3024347.ece
If you don’t, you can see part of it here:
http://libyatoronto.posterous.com/hisham-matar-justice-satisies-a-deeper-desire
You obviously don’t get my point. Every second Gaddafi remains alive, people get killed.
I only hope Gaddafi is killed while he is still in control. giving orders to kill people.
If he’s captured alive, I would rather have him under trial for terrorism and crimes against humanity. And again, I am against capital punishment, so if he is captured alive, I would want him to get prison for life.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
Who said Gaddafi is still in control?