By Staff Reporter
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in Libya, according to his political team and local media reports.
His lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, and political adviser, Abdulla Othman, confirmed the death of the 53-year-old in separate Facebook posts on Tuesday, though neither provided immediate details.
Libyan outlet Fawasel Media quoted Othman as saying that armed men stormed Gaddafi’s home in Zintan, about 136 kilometres southwest of Tripoli, and killed him. In a later statement, Gaddafi’s political team said four masked men carried out what it described as a “cowardly and treacherous assassination”.
According to the statement, Gaddafi resisted the attackers, who allegedly disabled security cameras in an attempt to conceal their actions.
Former High State Council head Khaled al-Mishri called for an “urgent and transparent investigation” into the killing.
Although Saif al-Islam never held an official government position, he was widely regarded as his father’s heir apparent from the early 2000s until the 2011 uprising that led to Muammar Gaddafi’s death and the collapse of his decades-long rule.
Captured in 2011 while attempting to flee Libya after opposition forces seized Tripoli, Saif al-Islam was imprisoned in Zintan. He was released in 2017 under a general amnesty and had continued living in the town.
Born in Tripoli in June 1972, Saif al-Islam was Western-educated and often portrayed as the reformist face of his father’s regime. He played a key role in restoring Libya’s relations with Western nations, including negotiations to dismantle Libya’s weapons of mass destruction programme and compensation for victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Educated at the London School of Economics, he publicly advocated constitutional reform and human rights. However, during the 2011 uprising, he became a central figure in the regime’s violent crackdown, issuing warnings of widespread bloodshed and vowing to fight to the end.
He was later accused of torture and crimes against humanity and became the subject of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. A Libyan court sentenced him to death in absentia in 2015.
After years in hiding, Saif al-Islam resurfaced in 2021 when he controversially announced his candidacy for Libya’s stalled presidential elections. His bid was rejected due to his criminal conviction, and disputes surrounding his candidacy contributed to the eventual collapse of the electoral process and Libya’s continued political deadlock.
