JOHANNESBURG, February 2, 2012 (AFP)
South African broadcaster e.tv has been fined for showing graphic footage of Moamer Kadhafi’s last moments before his death in October, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission said Thursday.
The independent television station was ordered to pay 35,000 rand ($4,500, 3,500 euros) for broadcasting violent images of Kadhafi’s death on October 23.
The commission found the channel guilty of broadcasting “unnecessary detail of the attack on Colonel Kadhafi,” it said in a statement.
It also blamed e.tv for not carrying a warning before airing the scenes.
South Africa’s broadcasting code bars images that promote or glamorize violence.
The long-time Libyan leader was killed in murky circumstances after being captured in his hometown of Sirte on October 20.
There has been international unease over the way Kadhafi died after opposition fighters dragged him out of a concrete sewage pipe where he had been hiding near his home.
Videos taken at the time showed him alive. Subsequent footage shows a bloodied Kadhafi being hustled through a frenzied crowd, before he disappears in the crush and the crackle of gunfire can be heard.
