Tears, chants and volleys of gunfire were fired into the air punctuating the funeral for nine imams Libya said NATO killed in an air strike, but the alliance said the building it struck was a command-and-control centre.
NATO is bombing Libya as part of a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Some NATO members say they will continue until Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who taunted the alliance as cowards whose bombs could not kill him, is forced out.
The nine imams were among 11 people killed in a strike on a guest house in the eastern city of Brega yesterday.
Mourners hoisted the plain wooden coffins above their heads to carry them into the cemetery and they were open to show what looked like bodies wrapped in green shrouds and garlanded with flowers.
Earlier, the International Criminal Court has said it will be seeking arrest warrants on Monday for the three people considered most responsible for crimes against humanity in Libya.
Diplomats say Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi is likely to top the list.
Meanwhile, the Libyan government has rejected as nonsense a suggestion that Col Gaddafi has been injured, and insisted he is still running the country.
Libyan state television has broadcast a message it said was from Col Gaddafi, claiming he was in a place where NATO could not reach him.
The comments were aired yesterday after Italy's foreign minister said Col Gaddafi had very likely left the Libyan capital and probably been injured by NATO air strikes.
‘I tell the cowardly crusader (NATO) that I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me,’ said the man on the audio tape, whose voice sounded like Gaddafi's.
‘Even if you kill the body you will not be able to kill the soul that lives in the hearts of millions,’ he said, adding he had received a ‘massive’ number of calls after a NATO air strike on his Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli on Thursday.
Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said Col Gaddafi was unharmed and in Tripoli, leading the country and in good spirits.
