TV reports in Dubai and Jordan claimed yesterday that Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha called her father’s mobile phone after seeing reports in Algeria that he had been captured.

The phone was answered by fighters. Aisha screamed at them and called them ‘rats’.

While few mourned the deaths, the growing row cast a shadow over the celebrations with NTC officials and fighters telling differing stories. Some denied that Gaddafi had been executed and claimed instead that he was shot in a firefight after his arrest.

But one NTC minister in the Libyan capital Tripoli told the Mail yesterday that officials had been saying for weeks that Gaddafi would be shot if cornered – a claim at odds with the official rebel line.

‘He took their blood – they had to take his,’ the senior minister said. ‘We couldn’t have stopped them even if we had tried. It was their due after seeing their brothers killed.’