Hundreds of guards had left their posts to help control the streets. Others simply fled for fear of reprisals by a population angry after four decades of oppression.

By Feb. 15 of last year, about a month into the uprising, the doors at most of the country’s prisons and jails began to swing open, allowing thousands of criminals to flee.

According to government officials, about 26,000 criminals — political prisoners were kept in separate facilities and remained in lockdown — were serving time when the escapes began. Almost 200 of those escapees were facing the death penalty for serious crimes, including murder.

“There was panic inside and outside the prisons,” said Dya Adin Badi, who, at the outset of protests last year, was in charge of seven detention facilities stretching from Ras Lanuf through Sirte to Misrata.

“The guards had fled. There was no security, no staff. We didn’t want a riot on our hands.”

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The four of us were riding in the back of a blazing red minibus at the beginning of April, approaching the strategic oil town of Brega, where the worst fighting of the conflict had been taking place. Our driver was a teenage boy, like his friend in the passenger's seat. The so-called front in this war was always changing. But we had already passed the last rebel checkpoint and we knew whatever front existed was beginning to reveal itself.

Our goal was to learn, and then report, who was in control of Brega.

We were getting nervous. We knew the boys driving were scouting the road ahead, and maybe on their own initiative. Anton, the most experienced journalist in the group, mumbled something about it being risky. We could feel our guts begin to tighten. Manu and I looked at each other. But said nothing.

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It turns out one of the operatives reportedly involved in the failed scheme has a history of getting caught up in scandals, and his hiring by the Republican National Committee last year helped discredit then-chairman Michael Steele.

From the Times:

To a colorful group of Americans — the Washington terrorism expert, the veteran C.I.A. officer, the Republican operative, the Kansas City lawyer — the Libyan gambit last March looked like a rare business opportunity.

Even as NATO bombed Libya, the Americans offered to make Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi their client — and charge him a hefty consulting fee. Their price: a $10 million retainer before beginning negotiations with Colonel Qaddafi’s representatives.

…

The other American partners were Neil S. Alpert, who had worked for the Republican National Committee and the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Randell K. Wood, a Kansas City, Mo., lawyer who has represented Libyan officials and organizations since the 1980s.

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As Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, argued in a New York Times Op-Ed this summer, "Regardless of whether it is a gay or plural relationship, the struggle and the issue remains the same: the right to live your life according to your own values and faith." Indeed, the ongoing U.S. battle over marriage equality has highlighted the injustice that can arise when the state sanctifies certain unions and forbids others – all on religious and moral grounds. And while the Warren Jeffs trial brought attention to the dangers of cloistered polygamist societies in a major way, there are also normalizing examples at hand, albeit on TV via "Big Love." In such a context, it can seem a basic issue of the freedom to define our families for ourselves.

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Though earlier the NTC had maintained that the former dictator had been killed during crossfire when rebels liberated Sirte, NTC officials have said that they will prosecute the person found responsible for Gadhafi's death, reports the Guardian.

"With regards to Gadhafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us," said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, the deputy chief of the National Transitional Council, to the al-Arabiya satellite channel, according to the Guardian.

"We had already launched an investigation. we have issued a code of ethics in handling of prisoners of war. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army. Whoever is responsible for that [Gaddafi's killing] will be judged and given a fair trial."

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More than 100 militia brigades from Misrata have been operating outside of any official military and civilian command since Tripoli fell in August. Members of these militias have engaged in torture, pursued suspected enemies far and wide, detained them and shot them in detention, Human Rights Watch has found. Members of these brigades have stated that the entire displaced population of one town, Tawergha, which they believe largely supported Gadhafi avidly, cannot return home.

As the war in Libya comes to an end, the pressing need for accountability and reconciliation is clear. The actions of the Misrata brigades are a gauge of how difficult that will be, and Misrata is not alone in its call for vengeance. In the far west, anti-Gadhafi militias from the Nafusa Mountains have looted and burned homes and schools of tribes that supported the deposed dictator. Anti-Gadhafi militias from Zuwara have looted property as they demanded compensation for damage they suffered during the war.

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Michael Woodward comments, below the story:

Kevin Dawes was not a "medical aide worker" he is a self styled medic who taught himself the "skills" through youtube. He has no firearms training and is suffering severely from delusional and paranoid behavior. He is a danger to himself and others. In other stories about him, it is said even that battle hardened rebels are afraid of him and think he is crazy. This story is not researched and needs to be fact checked. I am sure that if you do search for some of his old screen names (try Caro)you will find some of his postings. Also, check out his blog and youtube channel- you will find he is not what this article portrays him to be.

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A frame-by-frame analysis of this exclusive GlobalPost video clearly shows the rebel trying to insert some kind of stick or knife into Gadhafi's rear end.

GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton said there is some question as to whether the instrument was a knife from the end of a gun, which Libyans call a Bicketti, or a utilitiy tool known as a Becker Knife and Tool, which is popularly known as a BKT.

This latest video discovery comes as international and human rights groups call for a formal investigation into how the former Libyan leader was killed. In video clips that have emerged of his capture, Gadhafi can be seen injured but alive. Later he is seen with what appears to be gunshot wounds to his head and chest. According to the Geneva Conventions, however, abuse of prisoners under any circumstance is not permissable.

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Initial accounts indicated that the former Libyan leader was killed in crossfire, or struck by a NATO airstrike. But it's now clear that he died in captivity, after being mistreated by soldiers fighting on behalf of Libya's new government, the National Transitional Council.

It's possible that Gadhafi died of wounds that were inflicted before his capture. Mortal wounds inflicted in battle do not violate international law.

But emerging evidence suggests that he may have been killed while in custody. If so, that would constitute a serious war crime, human-rights advocates say. It could also tarnish the new government's standing, especially if other crimes are revealed, and if the perpetrators are not held accountable.

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The shock discovery of the former dictator, found cowering in a water drain on Thursday in his hometown of Sirte, was captured by Ali Algadi, a rebel fighter, with an iPhone just seconds after Gadhafi was dragged from the drain in which he was hiding. This is the earliest footage to emerge so far.

Although clearly injured, Gadhafi is still alive during the capture. His captors can be heard shouting, "Don't kill him! Don't kill him! We need him alive!" throughout the footage.

According to an official statement by the National Transitional Council, Gadhafi was shot before his capture and died from his wounds on route to Misrata.

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With injuries to his leg, torso and head, Gadhafi was found alone in the drain pipe, surrounded by the bodies of his guards who had been shot as they tried to flee Sirte from the west.

In video footage captured on the mobile phone of 21-year-old Ali Algadi, Gadhafi is seen being dragged from his hiding place, bloodied and dazed. Those present shout repeatedly, "Don't' kill him! Don't kill him! We need him alive." But the long-time Libyan leader was later confirmed to have died.

"I can't tell you how good it feels," said Algadi as he sat near the drainage pipe now decorated with anti-Gadhafi slogans. "When we came here we thought it was just snipers, that's it. Then one of the guys started yelling Moammar Gadhafi! Moammar Gadhafi! He had him by the leg and was dragging him from the hole. He was hiding like a rat."

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A Libyan commentator on Al Jazeera this morning, celebrating the death of Gadhafi, described it as the “third fall” of dictators in the Arab Spring. But while the overthrow of Gadhafi’s 42-year-old regime found its origins in the same Tunisian- and Egyptian-inspired nonviolent mobilizations as those still underway in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, Libya's trajectory was profoundly different.

It began the same way, with a home-grown call for protests against a dictatorship responsible for terrible repression, the massacre of prisoners and more. But when Libyan protesters took up arms, and especially when leaders invited NATO and the U.S. to become the “air force of the Transitional National Council,” the links between Libya’s rebellion and those of the rest of the Arab Spring began to fray.

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When these images first appeared, news organizations were cautious to promote them; many added them to live blogs while conceding that what they seemed to show could not be independently confirmed. But as they spread steadily across the Internet, the question of their verifiability became secondary to the power of the story they seemed to tell about the death Wednesday of the Libyan strongman.

Why are we so fascinated by images such as these -- gripping action shots that surface and circulate in conjunction with historical flashpoints -- even as they make us queasy? Start with the horror of witnessing a life-or-death moment.

"They're powerful," says Barbie Zelizer (author of "About to Die: How News Images Move the Public" and professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania), "because they are gruesome."

"[Images such as these] are at the limits of what we tend to think of as decent, appropriate imagery on the front spaces and front pages of our news environment. But they're powerful also because they suggest, in a very before-and-after fashion, that we are now in a new moment."

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But while the revolution is at its end, deep divisions remain in the country, and fears of civil war are ever present. The Libyan rebels themselves are far from unified and have been jockeying for power amongst themselves for months. And, now that the focus of the rebels' firepower — Gaddafi — is gone, many Libyans worry that the real divisions within the rebel faction will begin to emerge in more serious, and possibly violent, ways.

Hassan Sadaw, a Libya English teacher from the western rebel stronghold of Misrata, told GlobalPost's James Foley earlier this month that he worried that divisions among the rebels would eventually erupt and that the two sides would turn their weapons on each other.

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Moustaf said Gadhafi had been shot in the head and close to the heart on the outskirts of the western roundabout of Sirte, where he was hiding in a hole surrounded by bodyguards. Moustaf claimed to have been in the ambulance with Gadhafi when he died. The BBC, who spoke to another Libyan rebel, also reported that Gadhafi had been hiding in a hole. The BBC also reported that Gadhafi yelled, "Don't shoot," before he was killed.

Other rebel fighters said that Gadhafi's body, along with dozens of loyalist prisoners, was being taken to Misrata.

Motassim Gadhafi, the fifth son of Gadhafi and a Libyan Army officer who is believed to have been directing the final stand in Sirte, was also confirmed dead. His body was seen at a local field hospital.

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March to May: Honey and grapes; olives and dates. Libya in bloom.

August: Late sunsets and live shows at Cyrene's ancient Odeon. High season? High times.

November to December: Winter sun, ocean breeze. (Wear a headscarf or wrap your ears tight in a tagelmoust.)

Excerpt from the "Lonely Planet Guide to Libya, Third Edition." (Unpublished.)

*****

1. Springtime in Ajdabiya, Libya

April 2011

"Get over," the armed rebel fighter screamed. "Get out of the way."

His checkered scarf danced in the hot wind. It was early evening and he looked tired. Five o'clock shadow dappled his cheeks.

We stood there for a moment looking over the dusty hamada, the Libyan rebel and I, at the final outpost on the way to Ajdabiya; the last point before the road winds west to the front line.

Then he screamed again. "Move."

His cries were not directed at me but to a pair of girls playing in the middle of the desert road, a truck headed right for them. They ran to the edge of the strip and tumbled into a narrow ditch, laughing, as the pickup plowed down the road, its chassis tattooed with rebel graffiti tags, its wheels tearing up the freedom flag that fluttered into its path.

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Cameron spoke at a press conference alongside French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday -- the first world leaders to travel to Libya since revolutionary forces seized the capital and ousted Gadhafi. Both countries led international support for the rebellion.

To Gadhafi and his supporters, Cameron said "It is over, give up" and added: "Anyone who thinks Gadhafi has any role (in ruling the country) should forget it." Sarkozy, meanwhile, promised to support Libya's new rulers, saying Gadhafi will be brought to justice but urging Libyans to avoid "vengeance."

Sarkozy says Libyans should "preserve unity" and "seek reconciliation" within its people, urging "no vengeance, no retaliation."

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While the war crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi and his forces are comparatively well known, Amnesty International said in a report that the rebels had also committed widespread abuses since the revolution began in February, including the execution of dozens of pro-Gaddafi prisoners. Hundreds of black migrant workers, assumed to be mercenaries, have also been detained and are being held illegally, the rights group said.

"The new authorities must make a complete break with the abuses of the past four decades and set new standards by putting human rights at the center of their agenda," said Claudio Cordone, a senior director at Amnesty International.

More than half the prisoners detained in Tripoli and Zawiya are believed to be foreign nationals. Most are believed to be migrant workers and not fighters. Migrant families have also been the target of harassment and discrimination, forcing many to leave their homes.

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The council's deputy defense minister said, however, that Libya's former rebels had no idea where Gadhafi was, and they were focusing on taking control of territory instead of tracking down the former leader.

Figures in Libya's new government have given a series of conflicting statements about Gadhafi's presumed whereabouts since the fall of the capital last month and many reports about his location have proven untrue.

Anis Sharif told The Associated Press that Gadhafi was still in Libya and had been tracked using advanced technology and human intelligence. Rebel forces have taken up positions on all sides of Gadhafi's presumed location, with none more than 40 miles (60 kilometers) away, he said, without providing details.

"He can't get out," said Sharif, who added the former rebels are preparing to either detain him or kill him. "We are just playing games with him," Sharif said.

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