Nation of Islam leader slams Gadhafi's death

[October 26, 2011]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Tuesday said the killing of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was "an assassination" and predicted the U.S. was unprepared for the looming backlash from his overthrow.

During an interview with a Chicago radio station, Farrakhan laid Gadhafi's death at the feet of the U.S., Great Britain and France. Gadhafi was killed last week, two months after being ousted following a 42-year reign that turned his oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

Farrakhan, who considered Gadhafi a friend, said those nations' establishment of a no-fly zone to stop Gadhafi's planes and offers of humanitarian relief to the Libyan people were intended to help oust Gadhafi from power and gain access to Libya's oil wealth.

"They succeeded in being the authors of the successful assassination of a sitting president," Farrakhan told WVON-AM in Chicago, adding that it placed America's interests in danger. "No one can trust the United Nations because it is a pawn of the Western world. No nation will give up their weapons of mass destruction like Gadhafi did, because it is the only protection they have against the wicked witches of the West."

Farrakhan also noted that the people now claiming leadership of Libya are advocating Islamic Sharia law, something that he contends the U.S. has opposed.

Farrakhan earlier this year portrayed Gadhafi as a fellow revolutionary who has lent millions of dollars to the Nation of Islam over the years. The group used $3 million it borrowed from Libya in the 1970s to acquire its opulent headquarters on Chicago's South Side. A $5 million loan was used years later to pay back taxes and costs for the home of the movement's former leader Elijah Muhammad.

"It wasn't the money, but the principles that made me his brother," Farrakhan said Tuesday.

Farrakhan, who became acquainted with Gadhafi in the 1970s and 1980s, also said Libyan oil revenue was used to build schools and universities that increased literacy, and he credited Gadhafi with establishing a health care system that he said was the best in the Third World.

Gadhafi, 69, was buried Tuesday along with his son, Muatassim, and former Defense Minister Abu Bakr Younis after the military council in the city of Misrata ordered a reluctant Muslim cleric to say the required prayers. The National Transitional Council is under international pressure to investigate the circumstances of Gadhafi's death.

Farrakhan said America "doesn't know what it's gotten itself" into with the Gadhafi overthrow. He said he didn't believe Gadhafi when he said al-Qaida was involved in efforts to oust him, but now Farrakhan believes that was true.

The Chicago-based Nation of Islam has espoused black nationalism and self-reliance since it was founded in the 1930s, though in recent years has made efforts to recruit other ethnic groups.

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.