TV footage shows Libya fighters hauling Gaddafi body

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, covered in blood, is held on a truck by NTC fighters in Sirte in this still image taken from video footage October 20, 2011.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The bloodied body of Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for more than four decades, was shown in TV footage Thursday being hauled and manhandled by fighters who ousted him.

In images carried by Al Arabiya, Gaddafi was shown in what appeared to sand-colored fatigues, his face splattered with blood and his left shoulder awash in red as fighters hauled him up off the ground. He appeared to have a wound to the head.

It appeared Gaddafi was being loaded into the back of a pick-up truck where his body was surrounded by several people. Blood had been wiped onto the trousers of some of those lifting him.

Libyan television said Gaddafi had suffered bullet wounds to the head and stomach.

Al Jazeera carried images of Gaddafi's body lying on the ground almost stripped to the waist although the shirt was still on the right arm of the body.

Initially the corpse was shown face down on the ground, but part of the shirt was put around his head by those around him to roll him over and reveal the former leader's face to the camera.

Subsequently, Al Jazeera broadcast pictures of Gaddafi's corpse in the back of an ambulance. His face cleaned of blood, one of the people around him pointed to a wound to his head which looked like a bullet hole.

The body was not wearing a shirt and one person was using a phone camera to take shots of the former leader.

Al Jazeera said the images from the ambulance were the first of Gaddafi's body arriving in the city of Misrata.

Both sets of images were shaky and short.

(Reporting by Nour Merza; Writing by Sami Aboudi and Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich and David Stamp)