REUTERS

BENGHAZI: Libya’s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil set a two-week target Monday for the country to have a new government and said a commission of inquiry will probe Moammar Gadhafi’s killing.
“We have begun talks [on forming a government], and this matter will not take a month but will be finished within two weeks,” the National Transitional Council chairman told a news conference held in the former rebels’ stronghold of Benghazi.

A day after the NTC’s declaration of Libya’s liberation in the wake of Gadhafi’s capture and death, Abdel Jalil also said a commission of inquiry is being set up to probe the controversial killing of the fallen strongman.

“In response to international calls, we have started to put in place a commission tasked with investigating the circumstances of Moammar Gadhafi’s death in the clash with his circle as he was being captured,” Abdel Jalil said.
And after having raised concerns in the West by stressing Sunday that the new Libya will be governed in line with Islamic Shariah law, the NTC chief gave assurances it would remain a “moderate” Muslim country.

“I would like to assure the international community that we as Libyans are Muslims but moderate Muslims,” he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said Paris will keep watch over Libya’s respect for human rights after the promise of a system of Shariah law to run post-Gadhafi Libya.

“We will be watchful of respect for human rights and democratic principles, notably cultural and religious diversity and the equality of men and women to which France is unswervingly attached,” ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
And EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the introduction of Shariah in Libya must be in line with respect for human rights.

Abdel Jalil’s two-week timeline came as Libya’s new leaders embarked on the tough task of forging an interim government uniting disparate political forces after 42 years of Gadhafi’s iron-fisted rule, under which Shariah took a back seat.
“Today, we begin preparing for a new phase … the phase after the liberation, the phase that we will plan and work hard for the future of Libya,” said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the NTC.

“Let us start work on the adoption of the constitution,” he said Sunday as he declared liberation from Gadhafi’s rule at a rally attended by tens of thousands of revelers in Benghazi, birthplace of the anti-Gadhafi revolt.

Under an NTC road map, an interim government is to be formed and then polls for a constituent assembly to draft a new basic law held within eight months – the first democratic vote since Gadhafi came to power in a 1969 coup.
Parliamentary and presidential elections would be held within a year after that – or within 20 months of Sunday’s declaration.

The head of operations in Libya for NATO, which has said it will wind down its seven-month mission by Oct. 31, said Monday that the country is “essentially” free from threat of attack by Gadhafi loyalists.

“All areas have been freed,” Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard said at a video news conference from the operation’s Naples operational headquarters. “The threat of Gadhafi remnants is essentially gone.”
The long-awaited liberation announcement came amid raging controversy over the circumstances of Gadhafi’s death after he was taken alive during the fall of his hometown Sirte last Thursday.

Disquiet has grown internationally over how Gadhafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO airstrikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.
Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.

Meanwhile, Libya’s interim rulers ended the public display of the bodies of Gadhafi, his son and army chief Monday, after four days in which thousands of Libyans came to see for themselves that the dictator was really dead.
Guards locked the gates to the compound surrounding the cold storage container where the grim parody of the lying in state typically accorded to deceased leaders had been played out.

That may signal a decision has been reached on how and where to bury the bodies or that simply they are seen as a health hazard. Two NTC officials confirmed the decision to shut off the area to the public, giving no reason.
“That’s enough,” said one of the guards. “He’s been causing us as much trouble dead as he did alive.”

A steady stream of visitors filed in to view the spectacle Monday before the closure of the site, but far fewer than on previous days when crowds flocked to the container where the three rotting bodies were laid out on filthy mattresses.

“His cadaver has been kidnapped and exhibited as a war trophy, a conduct that violates the most elemental principles of Muslim norms and other religious beliefs,” Cuban leader Fidel Castro wrote in an opinion column Monday.

Libya’s interim Prime Minister Mahmud Jibril said in Jordan Sunday that an autopsy report showed Gadhafi was killed in “crossfire from both sides.”
Human Right Watch, meanwhile, urged the NTC to probe the killing of 53 people whose decaying bodies were found in Sirte, where the pro-Gadhafi camp put up its final stand.

“We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gadhafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte,” said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who investigated the killings.
“Some [of those killed] had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot.”
In the devastated city of Sirte, hundreds of residents returned Monday only to find the city’s streets littered with corpses, and their houses pillaged and destroyed.

Burst water pipes – gutted during the final, NATO-backed offensive by NTC fighters – flooded streets, while electricity inside people’s homes remained cut and taps dry.
Angry residents said they were struggling to find basic supplies such as water and food.