Down With Gadhafi: But at Who's Hands?

Would the people of Libya rather see their former brutal dictator in the courts, or would they rather have him murdered with no chance of reprieve? This answer is irrelevant now, as Moammar Gadhafi is now dead. He was murdered Thursday as rebellion leaders stormed the 42-year long ruler’s hometown of Sirte. U.N. officials claim that this needs to be further investigated, however, because it is uncertain as to whether or not Gadhafi was murdered during the capture or afterwards. There were cell phone videos taken of the bloodied and beaten Gadhafi, and Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called them both “very disturbing”. The Washington Post states that the U.N. Human Rights Council established an independent panel earlier this year to investigate abuses in Libya, and Colville said it would likely examine the circumstances of the 69-year-old leader’s death. The question at hand truly deals with the legal aspect of the murder, regardless of how destitute and ruthless Gadhafi’s regime was.
Colville claims that “you can’t just chuck law out of the window”, and also that “Killing someone outside a judicial procedure, even in countries where there is the death penalty, is outside the rule of law”. Although Gadhafi was the indirect murderer of countless lives, the U.N. still seems to feel he deserved to go to trial, as that very basic idea of having the right to a fair trial still stands, regardless of a person’s moral composure. From a sociological perspective, this poses a serious threat to the idea that human rights has validity. If someone’s life can be taken at the hands of a group, expecting no repercussions, many things become “fair game”, so to speak. I feel Gadhafi fully deserved to be punished to the fullest, but perhaps after the people of Libya were given their “cathartic trial”, where many of them could have been given the chance to speak when they had been forced to be silent for so long.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/un-rights-office-urges-probe-into-death-of-libyas-gadhafi/2011/10/21/gIQAnW9i2L_story.html