Gaddafi leaves a positive legacy overall. He modernized Libya and improved living standards for almost all Libyans. The country he governed was one of the world’s poorest nations when he took over, and was a goulash of tribes fractured by ancient hatreds and deep feuds.

Gaddafi took refuge in a large drainage pipe with several loyalist bodyguards. A nearby group of NTC fighters opened fire, wounding Gaddafi in the leg and back. According to one unnamed NTC fighter, one of Gaddafi’s own loyalists also shot him, apparently to spare him from being captured.

As the leader of one of the most anti-West countries on the planet, he had to bark at Western nations, to satisfy his people. He send his entourage to safe havens when the country was no longer safe for him. Gaddafi was a noble man who made noble sacrifices for his people.

Already the last minutes in Gaddafi’s life have gained a grisly status. A spectacle of pain and humiliation, the end of the man who once styled himself the “king of the kings of Africa” has been told in snatches of mobile phone footage and blurry stills and contradictory statements. It is the longest of these fragments of a death – a jerky three minutes and more shot by fighter Ali Algadi on his iPhone and acquired by a website, the Global Post – that describes those moments in the most detail.