Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in Libya, according to officials and local media.
His political adviser Abdullah Othman Abdurrahim confirmed his death on Tuesday without providing full details, saying four armed men stormed his residence after disabling surveillance cameras. The 53 year old died in Zintan, approximately 136 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli, where he had lived since 2011.
His French lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi told AFP he was killed around 2pm local time at his home by a four man commando unit. Ceccaldi stated Gaddafi had been warned by those close to him in recent days about security concerns.
Libya’s Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday that investigators and forensic doctors examined his body on Tuesday and concluded that he died as a result of multiple gunshot injuries. A criminal investigation has been launched, though authorities have not disclosed who may be responsible.
Khaled al-Mishri, former head of the Tripoli based High State Council, an internationally recognised government body, called for an urgent and transparent investigation into the killing.
The 444th Brigade affiliated with the Defence Ministry of the Government of National Unity categorically denied involvement in the incident. There has been speculation that militias close to the Tripoli based government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh could be behind the killing, though these claims remain unverified.
Gaddafi never held an official position in Libya but was widely considered his father’s second most powerful figure from 2000 until 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization backed uprising.
Educated at the London School of Economics, he played a pivotal role in nuclear negotiations with Western powers and was prominent when negotiating compensation for families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing.
When rebellion broke out against his father’s rule in 2011, Saif al-Islam immediately chose family loyalties over his Western connections to become an architect of brutal crackdown measures on dissidents. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him in June 2011 for alleged crimes against humanity.
After rebels took over Tripoli, he attempted to flee to neighbouring Niger dressed as a Bedouin tribesman but was captured by the Abu Bakr Sadik Brigade militia on a desert road. He was imprisoned in Zintan and in 2015, a Tripoli court sentenced him to death in absentia for war crimes.
He was released in 2017 as part of a general pardon and had lived in Zintan since then. After his release, he spent years underground to avoid assassination.
In November 2021, Gaddafi announced his candidacy for Libya’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti Gaddafi political forces. The election was later abandoned amid deep political divisions. His candidacy became a main point of contention, and he was disqualified because of his 2015 conviction.
Moussa Ibrahim, former spokesman for the Gaddafi government, wrote on social media that Gaddafi had been killed treacherously while wanting a unified, sovereign Libya safe for all its people.
Libya remains divided between a United Nations backed government in Tripoli headed by Dbeibeh and an eastern administration backed by military commander Khalifa Haftar. The country has struggled to recover from chaos that erupted after the 2011 uprising.
