Gaddafi 'Offered Riches As He Begged To Live'

Desperate Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi begged for his life by offering gold and money before he was killed, a witness has revealed.

Hammad Mufti Ali, 28, has told how the former leader frantically offered his captors riches beyond their wildest dreams after he was dragged from his sewer hideaway.

The details emerged as mystery still surrounded the final moments of Col Gaddafi's life and as his body remained unburied amid calls for an investigation into his death .

Mr Ali, the commander of a brigade in Sirte, told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera: "He was pulled from the drain and he was pushed around.

"He said he was willing to offer anything in exchange for his life - he said he had money and gold for us if we spared his life.

"He was losing a lot of blood - he was 69 years old and his body could not take it. He was in a bad way. He had had wounds everywhere from shrapnel and from being beaten."

Mr Ali added: "At one point someone screamed at him that instead of talking about money, as a good Muslim he should have been praying for his soul to be entrusted to God before dying.

"But he just kept saying he was ready to give us lots and lots of money and gold."

Col Gaddafi is said to have had more that \$200bn (£125bn) in cash and gold hidden away with some of it spread in secret accounts across the world.

Reports earlier this year after the start of the revolution said he had flown some of his wealth to Zimbabwe.

The International Monetary Fund has said it believes Libya had at least 140 tons of gold hidden away - if not more and that the bulk was hidden in the vaults of the central bank in Tripoli.

But he was thought to have taken several bars with him to use as bargaining chips.