seriously wounded

AFP news agency quoted another NTC official, Mohamed Leith, as saying that Col Gaddafi had been captured in Sirte and was "seriously wounded" but still breathing.

A soldier who says he captured Muammar Gaddafi told the BBC the colonel had shouted: "Don't shoot!"

But NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters news agency that the former leader had been shot in the head and killed as he tried to flee.

Reuters also quoted another NTC commander, Abdul Hakim al-Jalil, as saying that Col Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim had been captured and the head of his armed forces, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr, had been killed, but again this has not been independently verified.