Gaddafi’s fate - Make him face a court

EVERY revolution has its casualties and the fate of deposed tyrants may not always be a priority for those who deposed them.

After the Russian revolution the ruling Romanovs, on the orders of Lenin and Sverdlov, met a grim fate in Yekaterinburg. Their executions fuelled royalist wishful thinking for generations and the legend of a single survivor kept hopes of a new monarchy alive amongst their supporters.

One of the most enduring images of the Second World War are the bodies of Italian dictator Mussolini and his mistress swinging from a street lamp.

Already some of Muammar Gaddafi’s family have fled to Algeria where it seems they will be offered refuge but his whereabouts and fate seem uncertain. If he is captured an immediate execution is possible but, as always, his successors can make a clean break from their country’s past by allowing their courts do what is right.