The Batam Post carried the same pictures and headlines as everywhere else.
KHADAFI
TEWAS
The unavailing pleading for life was quoted: Don't shoot, don't shoot.
The main picture was from the files of the chieftain of former times, in the rich robes when he would pitch his famous tents in foreign capitals. Finally, in the end, the deposed leader was caught in a sewer.
That picture too featured in the Batam Post, the wall of the drain scrawled with graffiti celebrating the event.
One of the English newspapers made capital of the circumstance, turning the tyrant into a rodent.
The main photo was of the corpse. The dreadful tyrant brought to account for all his crimes: bloodied, shaggy-haired carcass with twisted mouth.
In Indonesia—in the local newspaper on the island of Batam at least—there was a variant cropping of the photograph, one that helped set the scene on the outskirts of Sirte, where Gaddafi was cornered.
In the earlier publications there was a close focus on the dead man, the figure of the torso, the head and rictus tightly framed.
In that reproduction there was an odd kind of angle, as if the body had lain on a rise of ground.
For the Batam Post the slightly wider shot revealed the staging that had been involved.
Alongside the corpse in the Batam Post, on the left, a man's jeans-clad leg was bent, the knee pointing at the camera. On the thigh blood had left a smear, the same as on the waistband of the prop’s white t-shirt.
The dying Gaddafi had leaked over the man.
Framing the body on the other side, on the right, was the prop's left arm.
Gaddafi's body was wedged against one of his captors, the man propping up the dead weight at an angle for the camera.
The scoop for the news-services. Market price say $US25k.
The man in jeans and tee, from an opposing tribe no doubt, willing to cradle the old monster in his lap.
A tale to dine out on for the rest of his life; adapted for the grandchildren.
One of the news outlets down South anticipated cheaper petrol prices.
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