In Britain, disquiet over grisly Gadhafi coverage

BACK THEN. In this Thursday, March 25, 2004 file photo, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, at right, talks with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair during a meeting outside Tripoli, Libya. As Tony Blair juggles his roles, as special envoy to the Middle East Quartet, consultant to investment bank JP Morgan, questions are being raised over the wisdom of trying to carry out so many different jobs at once. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, file)

LONDON — The rush to air pictures of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s final moments has disturbed many in Britain, with some arguing that pictures of his bloody demise should have been kept off television screens and front pages.

U.K. communications watchdog Ofcom said Friday that it had received complaints about numerous broadcasters that aired the images of a dazed or dead-looking Gadhafi being manhandled by his captors.

The pictures on Friday’s U.K. front pages were unusually graphic, with the Daily Mirror tabloid showing a particularly stark picture of the half-naked dictator caked in dried blood.

In a blog posting the BBC defended its decision to use the images as crucial to dispelling “the swirl of rumor” as conflicting reports emerged about Gadhafi’s state.