Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in Libya, according to statements from his lawyer, political advisers and local media reports.
His lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, and his political adviser, Abdulla Othman, announced the death of the 53-year-old in separate Facebook posts on Tuesday, without providing further details.
However, Libyan news outlet Fawasel Media quoted Othman as saying that armed men killed Saif al-Islam Gaddafi inside his home in the town of Zintan, about 136 kilometres southwest of the capital, Tripoli.
In a later statement, Gaddafi’s political team said the killing was a targeted attack, describing it as a “cowardly and treacherous assassination”.
The statement said that “four masked men” stormed his house and killed him, adding that Saif al-Islam confronted the attackers before he was murdered.
“He clashed with the assailants, who shut down the security cameras in a desperate attempt to conceal traces of their heinous crimes,” the statement said.
Reacting to the killing, Khaled al-Mishri, former head of the Tripoli-based High State Council, an internationally recognised government body, called for an investigation.
He wrote in a social media post that there must be an “urgent and transparent investigation” into the circumstances surrounding Gaddafi’s death.
Although Saif al-Islam Gaddafi never held an official government position, he was widely regarded as his father’s second-in-command from 2000 until 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces, ending more than four decades in power.
He was captured in 2011 in Zintan while attempting to flee Libya following the fall of Tripoli and was held by a local militia. He was released in 2017 under a general amnesty and had continued to live in Zintan since then.
Western-educated and fluent in English, Saif al-Islam was often seen as the public face of reform within his father’s authoritarian regime. He played a central role in efforts to restore Libya’s relations with Western countries in the early 2000s.
He led negotiations on Libya’s decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programme and was involved in talks that led to compensation for the families of victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Educated at the London School of Economics, he portrayed himself as a reformer, publicly calling for a constitution and respect for human rights. His doctoral dissertation focused on the role of civil society in reforming global governance.
However, when the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule erupted in 2011, Saif al-Islam abandoned reformist rhetoric and became a key figure in the violent suppression of protests, referring to opponents as “rats”.
Speaking to the Reuters news agency during the uprising, he declared: “We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya.”
He warned that “rivers of blood” would flow and said the regime would fight to the end.
“All of Libya will be destroyed. We will need 40 years to reach an agreement on how to run the country, because today, everyone will want to be president, or emir, and everybody will want to run the country,” he said.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was accused of torture and extreme violence against opponents of his father’s rule. By February 2011, he had been placed on a United Nations sanctions list and banned from international travel.
He was also wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 2011 uprising.
After rebel forces seized Tripoli, he attempted to flee to neighbouring Niger disguised as a Bedouin tribesman. He was captured by the Abu Bakr al-Sadiq Brigade on a desert road and flown to Zintan.
Following protracted negotiations with the ICC, Libyan authorities were granted the right to prosecute him domestically. In 2015, a court in Tripoli sentenced him to death in absentia for war crimes.
After his release from detention in 2017, he reportedly lived largely underground in Zintan amid fears of assassination.
In November 2021, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi re-emerged on the political scene when he announced his candidacy for Libya’s long-delayed presidential election, a move that sparked outrage among anti-Gaddafi factions across the country.
He was disqualified from the race because of his 2015 conviction, but when he attempted to appeal the ruling, armed fighters reportedly blocked access to the court.
The dispute over his candidacy became one of the major flashpoints in the electoral process, contributing to its eventual collapse and Libya’s return to political deadlock.
Boluwatife Enome
Follow us on:
