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I had seen his face before, I realised. Bald, wild-looking, with one wonky eye, he was the starring character in a video taken moments after Gaddafi’s murder. In the clip, a group of rebels are surrounding Ahmed, kissing him on the head and proclaiming him Gaddafi’s killer. "I saw him do it," one says. "I saw him kill Gaddafi with his own hands, just now." Ahmed smiles bashfully then raises two pistols in the air – the instruments of summary Libyan justice. I looked at the pistol on the table and the pistol in Ahmed’s waistband. The same two pistols: FN Five Sevens.
Even in a country awash with guns, these pistols were very rare. Manufactured by Belgium’s FN Herstal, only 360 were delivered to Libya, all destined for the elite 32 Brigade, commanded by Gaddafi’s son Khamis, or for the dictator’s personal bodyguard. The only place they would be found in Libya is surrounding Gaddafi. Things were looking good, so I sat down to talk.
However, there was a problem. Ahmed didn’t want to do an interview. His situation was complex. He was staying in a three star hotel in Tripoli he couldn’t afford – someone else was paying his bills – and we both knew going public as Gaddafi’s killer would be a one-way ticket to the Hague. Sure, I said, no interview. So I switched on my Blackberry voice recorder and slipped it on the table next to him as I chatted to his friend.
Muhammad Juma al-Shoshni is 25, from al-Khoms, and claims to have killed Gaddafi’s son, Mutassim. "There were four of us”, he said, “watching a yard of a house after the fight. Gaddafi’s people came forward and started shooting at us. We killed two and the third one said, ‘Let me live and I’ll tell you a secret. The first one in the yard is Mutassim.'"
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