PERTH, Australia - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he takes no great pleasure in the brutal execution of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, but adds that realistically, such an end should have been expected.
As the no-fly zone over Libya is lifted and Canada's military mission there ends, cell phone videos of Gadhafi's final minutes have called into question the emerging new country's commitment to the rule of law.
Ghastly details have emerged from triumphal videos showing a frenzied pack of rebels savagely beating Gadhafi and apparently sodomizing him with a knife before he was shot dead.
"In terms of the particulars of the death of the former leader, I obviously don't take any great pleasure in that and obviously when you see things happen outside the rule of law, they concern you," Harper said when asked about the horrific spectacle following a Commonwealth summit in Perth, Australia.
"But I also think we're all realistic enough to know that given the way he had ruled the country that the chances of him meeting an end like that were probably pretty high."
The gathering of the 54-member Commonwealth itself focused heavily on human rights and rule of law.
Harper said Libya is going to be "a work in progress going forward," but that too is expected since the country had no institutions of civil society or democratic governance.
"There's going to be ups and downs going forward in Libya," Harper said.
"This is a country that is emerging from 42 years of psychotic dictatorship with killing and imprisonment on a massive scale and on an ongoing basis with the development of absolutely no institutions -- not just no democratic institutions, no institutions of civil society."
Canada's contribution to the NATO-led, United Nations-approved mission to Libya included seven fighter jets, a warship and surveillance plans.
Their mission, as mandated by UN resolution, was to protect a civilian uprising from their despotic leader.
In the end, the NATO air raids were able to provide the cover necessary for the rebel fighters to eventually topple the Gadhafi regime, forcing the dictator from the capital of Tripoli and into hiding in his hometown of Sirte, where he met his death.
Canada and its international partners have now turned their attention to helping Libya's new leadership, the National Transitional Council, build a functioning democracy.
