Gadhafi to be buried in Libyan desert

Combined wires services

TRIPOLI -- Moammar Gadhafi will be buried today in a simple ceremony, attended by Muslim clerics, in a secret location in the Libyan desert, an official with the National Transitional Council said yesterday.

The former Libyan leader "will be buried tomorrow in a simple burial with sheiks attending the burial. It will be an unknown location in the open desert," the official told Reuters by telephone.

"No agreement was reached for his tribe to take him," he added. When asked whether Gadhafi's son Mo'tassim would be buried in the same ceremony, the official said, "Yes."

Meanwhile, the head of the transitional government Monday tried to reassure the Western powers who helped topple Gadhafi that the country's new leaders are moderate Muslims.

Just as in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, Islamists have emerged from yet another Arab Spring uprising as the most powerful group in the country. How far they will go will be decided at the ballot box -- in Tunisia this week, in Egypt in November and in Libya within eight months.

National Transitional Council leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Sunday that Islamic Sharia law would be the main source of legislation. Laws contradicting its tenets would be nullified and polygamy would be legalized, he said.

"I would like to assure the international community that we as Libyans are moderate Muslims," said Abdul-Jalil, who added that he was dismayed by the focus abroad on his comments Sunday on polygamy.

The stir created by Abdul-Jalil's address in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where the anti-Gadhafi uprising was born in mid-February, came as international pressure mounted on him to investigate the circumstances of Gadhafi's death.

Abdul-Jalil ordered an inquiry to establish whether Gadhafi was basically executed after being captured alive Thursday by fighters in his hometown of Sirte or whether he died in a crossfire as government officials have suggested.