Last days of Gaddafi

Huneish Nasr, Muammar Gaddafi's personal driver, said he spent the last five days of the siege with Gaddafi, moving from house to house to evade fighters who were peppering the neighbourhood with explosives and gunfire.

Huneish Nasr last saw the boss he served for 30 years standing in the ruins of Sirte looking confused as all hell broke loose around them.

"Everything was exploding," said Nasr, Muammar Gaddafi's personal driver, recalling the moments before the deposed dictator was caught last week.

"The revolutionaries were coming for us. He wasn't scared, but he didn't seem to know what to do. It was the only time I ever saw him like that."

Minutes later, euphoric rebels had ended Gaddafi's last stand, over-running the ruined quarter of his birthplace that had served as his final, ignominious refuge.

Now, a week later, Nasr and Mansour Dhao, the slain dictator's security chief, seem to be the only surviving members of Gaddafi's old guard who can bear testament to the frantic final days.

Nasr said he spent the last five days of the siege with Gaddafi, moving from house to house to evade fighters who were peppering the neighbourhood, known as District 2, with explosives and gunfire.

Nasr, a man in his mid-60s, said his former boss could not seem to grasp what was unfolding around him. "He was strange," said Nasr. "He was always standing still and looking to the west. I didn't see fear in him." Nasr was amongst the few who were present when the slain dictator was buried.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam on Thursday offered to surrender in the International Criminal Court in The Hague if he is guaranteed his safety, NTC officials said. He has been on the run since his father's death.

Also on Thursday, Libya's new leaders vowed to bring Gaddafi's killers to justice in a sharp break with their previous insistence he was caught in the crossfire with his own loyalists.

"With regards to Gaddafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us," Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of NTC, said.

"We had already launched an investigation. We have issued a code of ethics in handling of prisoners of war. There were some violations by those who are unfortunately described as revolutionaries. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army," the official said.