Gaddafi dead - but who killed him?

Mohammed al-Babi holds a golden pistol he says belonged to Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte, Libya. Photo / AP

Waving a golden gun seized from Gaddafi, this is the teenage fighter who claimed to have brought the tyrant's 42-year reign of terror to an end.

Mohammed al-Bibi was one of several rebels keen to take credit for the death of the dictator, with others claiming to have beaten him with their shoes or watched as the fatal shots entered his body.

Wearing a back-to-front baseball cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with a heart and the slogan "I love you", al-Bibi was hoisted on to the shoulders of his comrades after the attack, amid chants of "God is great" and celebratory gunfire.

The boy, thought to be only 18, claimed that he had confronted Gaddafi and then snatched his prized gold-plated 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol from him as a trophy as he lay fatally wounded.

The weapon was said to be one of a number of golden guns that the dictator owned.

Rebels seized a gilded Kalashnikov from his Bab al-Aziziya compound when it fell in August.

Another fighter claimed he had slapped Gaddafi with his shoe after his capture, and demonstrated how the former Libyan leader was shot in the stomach.

A rebel with him who claimed to have witnessed the attack said: 'This man hit Muammar Gaddafi by his shoes.

"Muammar Gaddafi was not in car - he was sleeping with some bodyguards around the place.

"We catch him in there and we shoot him by gun, 9mm."

Asked where Gaddafi had been shot, the other rebel indicated the right hand side of his stomach. He also waved his shoe to demonstrate what he had done to the dictator.

Hitting someone with a shoe is a sign of huge disrespect in the Middle East. When Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, Iraqis swarmed around it, striking it with their footwear.

Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi hurled his shoe at George W. Bush during a press conference, but the then president of the U.S. managed to duck out of its way.