Libya plans elections by June

Acting Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Saturday the first elections in the post-Moammar Gadhafi era would take place by June. The BBC reported Jibril said a national congress of Libya would first be chosen that would draft a constitution and form an interim government, which would have control until the first presidential elections. "According to what we call the constitutional declaration, the first election after the liberation of the country ... should be within a period of eight months maximum," Jibril told a conference in Jordan. "The national congress of Libya ... is entitled with two tasks -- the first one to draft a constitution over which we'll have a referendum and the second task is to form the interim government, which should last until the first presidential elections are held." The National Transitional Council was expected to formally announce the country's liberation this weekend while NATO prepared to end its seven-month Libyan campaign Oct. 31. Meanwhile, hundreds of Libyans lined up to see the body of Gadhafi in a meat-storage room in Misurata. He was killed Thursday in Sirte, his birthplace. Abdul Rahmen Swasi visited the refrigerated room with his 11-year-old son, Mohammed, to see the bloody and bullet-riddled corpse, the Los Angeles Times reported. "I want him to keep the face of a tyrant in his mind," Swasi said, pointing to his son. "We saw Gadhafi talking for so many years on TV. Blah, blah, blah. But now we see him dead." It remained unclear whether Gadhafi would be buried in Misurata, Sirte or elsewhere. NTC officials have said they'll have a secret burial. On Friday, officials said Gadhafi stashed away more than $200 billion outside Libya during his 42-year reign. Gadhafi and his family are believed to own stakes in such prominent Western institutions as the Juventus soccer club in Italy and Pearson, the British company that publishes the Financial Times in London, the Times said. While he was known to have acquired vast wealth, one person who has seen reports on his assets told the newspaper new estimates made since his ouster are "staggering." "No one truly appreciated the scope of it," the source said.