Trial for Gaddafi Executioner?

Colonel Gaddafi (Pic: AFP /Philippe Desmazes)

The circumstances that led to the death of Muammar Gaddafi is allegedly still uncertain because there are so many versions of what happened. I would hazard a guess that, like me, most people are under no illusions as to what happened to Gaddafi.

Television footage broadcast by Sky News, yesterday and today, showed that the Libyan rebels had captured Gaddafi alive. The same footage also showed him being man handled and then it showed the lifeless body of Gaddafi, with an obvious bullet hole in the head. The Libyan NTC claims Gaddafi was captured by the Libyan rebels and was then caught in crossfire and consequently was shot dead.

Anyone who buys this version of events from the NTC must most certainly also believe in elves and fairies. With the number of rebels closely surrounding Gaddafi in the news footage, that “crossfire” bullet would have had to weave its way through all the rebels around Gaddafi, missing every single one of them, and then hit Gaddafi in the temple. A bit like Angelina Jolie was able to curve her bullets around people in the movie “Wanted”.

Amnesty International has urged that a full independent investigation be carried out into the death of Gaddafi. There has however been no such call from World Leaders. Why would they? The United States of America executed Osama Bin Laden instead of capturing him and bringing him to trial.

There is no doubt that men like Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi are guilty of some horrific, to put it mildly, crimes against humanity. It is almost impossible to feel any sympathy for them. The overwhelming temptation is of course to say that they got what they had coming. However, we simply cannot do that in a civilised world. No matter how outraged we may be and no matter how convinced the world may be that a court would have found them guilty. We must wait for the court to actually do so.

The moment that we executed Bin Laden and Gaddafi, we became them! We showed, like them, a complete disregard for the dignity and rights of other people. We ignored the very same laws that have been designed to protect all of our rights as individuals. We have effectively made laws relative.

Relativism is without doubt the biggest danger that we face in society today. It is destroying families. It is killing innocent babies. This need to adapt natural law, as it is deemed appropriate in a particular circumstance, will destroy us. We have to learn to accept that there are certain undeniable Truths and undeniable Errors in life, which do not change based on circumstances. 

To kill a man, not in self-defence, but in anger, outrage and revenge for what he has done, without giving him the right to a fair trial, is MURDER! Sadly, the truth now is that, if a Libyan rebel deliberately shot Gaddafi after he was captured, that rebel must now stand trial for murder, because that is exactly what he did. I suspect however that relativism will again come into play and the rebel will never be expected to answer for his actions. And so we continue down this slippery slope…